Ofr 


REESE    LIBRARY 

OF   THK 

UNIVERSITY   OF    CALIFORNIA. 

Received, ....        _ 
Accessions  No. JLAT^X.          Shelf  No.  _ 


itM 


THE   SYLVAN   YEAR. 


THE   UNKNOWN    RIVER. 


editions. 


THE  SYLVAN  YEAR.  With  20  etchings  by 
the  author,  and  other  artists.  8vo.  Cloth,  gilt 
edges.  Price  $5.50. 

THE  UNKNOWN  RIVER.  With  37  plates 
etched  by  the  author.  8vo.  Cloth,  gilt  edges. 
Price  #6.00. 


ROBERTS  BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS. 


THE   SYLVAN   YEAR, 


LEAVES  FROM  THE  NOTE  BOOK  OF 
RAOUL    DUB O IS. 


BY 


PHILIP    GILBERT    HAMERTON, 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  INTELLECTUAL  LIFE,"  "ETCHING  AND  ETCHERS,"  ETC. 


Non  canimus 


."—  VIRG.  Ed.  x. 


BOSTON: 
ROBERTS     BROTHERS. 

1882. 


UNIVERSITY  PRESS: 
JOHN  WILSON  &  SON,  CAMBRIDGE. 


61  tf 
& 

hf/1 


PREFACE. 


TN  order  to  give  more  unity  to  these  pages,  it  was 
•*•  decided,  after  some  hesitation,  to  introduce  one 
or  two  fictitious  personages  and  an  element  of  human 
interest.  Whatever  Nature  may  be  from  the  strictly 
scientific  point  of  view,  it  is  interesting  to  the  artist 
(whether  literary  or  pictorial)  mainly  as  it  is  related, 
in  ways  more  or  less  mysterious,  to  the  world  of  feeling 
which  lies  hidden  within  our  own  breasts.  Therefore, 
although  a  man  of  science  might  have  written  about  the 
forest  without  reference  to  human  sorrows  or  satisfac- 
tions, an  artist  could  not  do  so  except  at  the  risk  of 
sacrificing  his  most  effective  forces,  those  which  have 
influence  by  means  of  sympathy  and  association.  The 
principal  personage  of  the  narrative  was  in  some  degree 
suggested  by  the  '  Obermann '  of  De  Sdnancour,  a  crea- 
tion which  has  been,  if  not  precisely  popular,  certainly 
very  influential  amongst  the  more  sensitive  and  studious 
minds  of  Continental  Europe  during  the  earlier  part  of 


vi  Preface. 

the  present  century,  and  which  has  not  even  at  the  pres- 
ent day  altogether  lost  its  attraction  ;  for  '  Obermann  ' 
is  still  read  by  persons  of  culture,  though  the  mental 
condition  which  De  Se"nancour  painted  in  that  work  is 
.much  rarer  in  these  days  than  it  was  in  the  days  of 
Rene"  and  Childe  Harold.  The  fictitious  personage  who 
tells  what  there  is  of  story^n  'The  Sylvan  Year'  is, 
however,  a  conception  quite  distinct  from  the  dissatis- 
fied hero  of  De  Se*nancour,  and  is  intended  to  leave  a 
very  different  impression  upon  the  reader.  The  domi- 
nant note  of  '  Obermann '  is  ennui;  the  ennui  of  a  char- 
acter capable  of  long,  indefinite  suffering,  but  not  capa- 
ble of  passing  out  of  such  suffering  by  the  discipline  of 
active  sight  and  thought.  The  following  narrative,  so 
far  as  it  paints  the  character  of  the  imaginary  narrator, 
is  intended  rather  to  exhibit  the  value  of  external  nature 
as  a  refreshment  to  a  spirit  which,  though  it  has  suffered 
greatly,  has  still  strength  enough  to  take  a  hearty  and 
healthy  interest  in  everything  that  comes  within  the 
circle  of  its  observation. 


THE    SYLVAN    YEAR. 


THE  SYLVAN   YEAR. 

^j^igill^ 


A  Woodland  Estate— LeVal  Sainte  Veronique— Scenery  of  the  Valley. 

IN  the  heart  of  the  forests  between  the  vine-lands 
of  Burgundy  and  the  course  of  the  river  Loire  my 
mother's  family  had  for  centuries  possessed  a  property 
which  had  descended  to  myself,  but  which  I  had  visited 
only  on  rare  occasions.  It  required  singularly  little  care 
from  its  proprietor,  being  nearly  the  whole  of  it  forest- 
land,  and  the  cuttings  took  place  only  once  in  twenty 
years.  The  estate  had  been  divided  into  five  portions, 
and  the  times  of  cutting  had  been  so  arranged  that  one 
such  period  should  recur  every  fourth  year ;  so  we  came 
to  the  place  each  Leap-year,  like  the  2Qth  of  February. 
There  were  about  four  hundred  acres  of  woodland,  and 
it  would  be  difficult  to  find,  except  on  the  slopes  of  the 
Alps,  a  similar  extent  of  country  with  so  little  that  was 
level.  Seven  miles  from  the  nearest  public  road  stood 
our  ancestral  habitation.  It  occupied  the  bottom  of  a 
little  valley,  and  had  for  its  title  the  name  of  the  locality, 
le  Val  Sainte  Veronique.  The  house  was  not  a  chateau, 
nor  was  it  (I  rejoice  to  say)  an  ordinary  maison  bour- 
geoise.  It  consisted  of  the  remains  of  a  monastic  establish- 


2  November — A  Woodland  Estate. 

ment  which  had  never  been  either  extensive  or  splendid, 
but  our  religious  predecessors  had  left  upon  the  place 
that  which  suits  my  taste  and  temper  better  than  either 
size  or  splendor  —  the  impress  of  a  quiet  feeling,  in 
harmony  with  the  perfect  seclusion  that  reigned  there 
from  year  to  year.  They  had  left,  too,  a  lovely  chapel 
of  perfect  fourteenth-century  work,  which  had  been  used 
by  the  farmer  as  a  barn,  and  so  little  injured  (for  the  soft 
hay  did  no  harm  to  the  delicate  sculpture),  that  when 
I  restored  it  some  years  since  the  walls  and  vaults 
required  nothing  but  a  careful  cleaning,  and  the  only 
serious  outlay  was  that  for  a  new  pavement  and  the 
repair  of  the  external  roof.  The  monastic  buildings  pro- 
vided a  capacious  residence  for  one  of  my  tenants,  and  a 
house  for  my  own  family  ;  but,  as  our  visits  had  been  so 
rare,  we  had  gone  to  no  expense  in  luxuries,  and  the 
furniture  consisted  of  a  few  old  things  that  had  been 
left  there  by  my  maternal  forefathers,  who  were  people 
of  simple  tastes.  Beyond  the  repair  of  the  chapel  which 
had  not  been  costly,  I  had  laid  out  scarcely  anything  on 
these  old  buildings  in  the  Val  Sainte  Ve*ronique,  but  I 
thought  of  them  always  with  a  certain  quiet  affection, 
and  sought  their  shelter  willingly  in  the  trme  of  my 
deepest  sorrow,  going  to  that  secluded  place  with  a  half- 
religious  feeling,  as  if  its  monastic  associations  invited 
me,  and  made  the  retreat  more  perfect  and  its  tranquillity 
more  serene. 

I  have  said  that  the  buildings  were  situated  in  a  little 
valley.  Three  tiny  meadows  occupied  the  bottom,  like 
a  carpet  of  greenest  velvet,  and  in  the  midst  of  them 


November — The  Val  Ste.  Veronique.          3 

flowed  a  stream,  about  four  yards  wide,  whose  water 
was  of  the  most  lucid  purity,  and  abundant  even  in  the 
fiercest  heats  of  summer.  The  hills  around  were  so 
steep  that  they  derived  some  sublimity  from  their  steep- 
ness, but  they  were  not  exceedingly  lofty,  the  highest  of 
them  not  rising  to  more  than  seven  hundred  feet  above 
the  stream's  level.  Entirely  clothed  with  wood,  they 
offered  an  appearance  of  great  richness,  especially  in  the 
golden  weeks  of  autumn,  when  the  little  valley  became, 
for  a  brief  season,  a  glorious  study  for  a  landscape- 
painter. 


II. 


Arrival  at  the  Val  Sainte  Veronique  —  Plans  for  the  Employment  ot 
Time  —  Paternal  Education  —  Companionship  between  Father  and 
Son  —  Sad  Associations. 

WHEN  we  came  to  the  place  —  my  boy  and  I  — 
after  the  lamentable  events  of  the  war,  it  had 
not  this  temporary  splendor,  but  was  gray  under  a  gray 
and  rainy  sky ;  and  it  seemed  better  so,  more  in  unison 
with  the  sadness  of  our  hearts.  Our  first  visit  was  to 
the  chapel,  which,  when  we  had  last  stayed  here,  my 
wife  had  decorated  with  some  delicate  needle-work  of 
her  own  ;  and  here,  as  we  knelt  together,  my  boy  and  I 
had  leisure  to  feel  both  the  nearness  of  our  lost  ones 
and  their  remoteness.  We  chose  two  rooms  that  com- 
municated with  each  other,  and,  before  evening,  had 
given  them  an  appearance  of  tolerable  comfort.  This 


4  November — Employment  of  Time. 

can  never  be  very  difficult  in  a  place  where  firewood  is 
inexhaustibly  abundant.  Logs  were  heaped  on  the  old 
rusty  fire-dogs,  and  the  most  cheerful  beams  illuminated 
the  red-brick  floor  and  the  naked,  inhospitable  walls. 
That  night  the  good  fire  sufficed  for  us,  but  the  next 
day  we  busied  ourselves  very  actively  in  furnishing  our 
little  apartment  with  the  least  inconvenient  of  the  old 
things  that  were  scattered  about  the  mansion.  This 
activity  was  beneficial  to  both  of  us,  and  I  was  pleased 
to  see  how  Alexis  suddenly  regained  his  boyish  cheer- 
fulness in  the  toils  of  this  novel  occupation.  Far  from 
endeavoring  to  repress  this  happy  elasticity  of  youth, 
I  did  my  best  to  sustain  and  encourage  it,  for  there  is 
gloom  enough  between  infancy  and  age  without  adding 
anything  to  it  by  the  wilful  refusal  of  whatever  gleams 
of  sunshine  may  be  permitted  to  us. 

We  passed  a  whole  day  in  arranging  the  two  rooms 
that  were  to  be,  in  an  especial  sense,  our  home,  and 
gradually  they  came  to  wear  a  pleasant  and  familiar 
aspect,  as  we  unpacked  our  luggage  and  surrounded  our- 
selves with  our  little  personal  belongings.  We  set  up 
some  book-shelves,  and  a  rack  for  my  pipes,  and  another 
for  our  fowling-pieces  ;  we  hung  up,  with  a  melancholy 
satisfaction,  the  photographs  of  those  who  would  come 
to  us  no  more.  The  juxtaposition  of  these  details  is 
typical  of  what  was  going  forward  all  the  time  in  our 
innermost  thoughts,  for  whilst  we  were  busy  about  our 
things  the  images  of  the  beloved  ones  were  always  near, 
always  ready  to  rise  vividly  in  the  imagination. 

I  had  not  come  to  the  Val  Sainte  Veronique  with- 


November — Paternal  Education.  5 

out  a  definite  plan  for  the  employment  of  our  time. 
Employment  is  necessary  to  us  all,  and  in  all  circum- 
stances, but  it  is  most  especially  necessary  to  those  who 
have  to  bear  some  poignant  and  constantly-recurring 
sorrow.  In  the  solitude  that  death  had  made  for  me, 
I  felt  myself  drawn  nearer  to  my  remaining  son,  and 
resolved  to  have  him  with  me  for  a  whole  year  in  that 
lonely  dwelling  of  the  Val  Sainte  Veronique.  If  this 
arrangement  retarded  his  school-work,  there  might  be, 
it  seemed,  an  ample  compensation  in  the  constant  exer- 
cise of  a  beneficent  paternal  influence,  whilst  the  life  he 
would  lead  with  me  was  in  the  highest  degree  favora- 
ble to  his  physical  growth  and  health.  Nor  was  it 
inevitable,  either,  that  his  studies  should  be  neglected 
during  the  months  he  passed  with  me.  Though  quite 
without  ambition,  I  had  employed  a  life  of  leisure  in 
maintaining  and  extending  my  own  culture  in  various 
directions,  and  might  reasonably  suppose  myself  capable 
of  teaching  what  my  boy,  at  his  age,  could  have  learned 
in  an  ordinary  public  school.  The  two  disabilities  which 
so  commonly  make  paternal  education  practically  an 
impossibility,  the  want  of  leisure  and  the  want  of  the 
necessary  scholarship,  did  not  exist  in  my  case.  I  par- 
ticularly desired  to  associate  in  my  boy's  mind  the  love 
of  nature  with  the  love  of  literature,  and  art,  and  science ; 
being  firmly  convinced,  and  knowing  partly  from  my 
own  experience,  that  these  pursuits  enhance  the  value 
of  wealth  to  those  who  possess  it,  and  are  in  themselves 
true  riches  for  many  who  have  little  material  gold.  I 
determined,  therefore,  that  we  would  not  pass  our  time 


6  November — Sad  Associations. 

in  the  forests  like  wild  animals,  but  that  some  light  of 
culture  should  brighten  our  sylvan  year. 

I  indulged  myself,  further,  in  the  hope  —  though  this 
may  have  been,  to  some  extent,  a  common  parental 
illusion  —  that  by  the  constant  but  gentle  exercise  of 
paternal  influence,  whatever  degree  of  that  influence  I 
already  possessed  over  Alexis  might  be  increased  during 
the  year  that  we  were  to  live  together  in  such  close  and 
uninterrupted  companionship.  It  is  the  misfortune  of 
public  education  that  our  sons  are  separated  from  us 
in  their  youth  and  delivered  into  the  hands  of  teachers, 
who,  however  conscientious  they  may  be,  cannot,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  take  that  earnest  and  complete  inter- 
est in  their  whole  mental  and  physical  well-being  which 
incessantly  occupies  the  mind  of  every  father  who  is 
worthy  of  the  name.  Since  this  boy  alone  remained  to 
me,  I  desired  to  establish  between  us  relations  of  inti- 
macy and  friendship  of  a  kind  which  cannot  be  incom- 
patible with  respect  on  one  side  and  dignity  on  the  other. 
His  brothers  had  loved  me  well,  and  when  their  life- 
blood  flowed  out  upon  the  miry  ground  at  Gravelotte, 
their  last  thoughts,  so  far  as  they  related  to  anything 
in  this  world,  were,  I  doubt  not,  thoughts  of  tender 
affection  for  their  mother  and  dutiful  love  for  me.  I 
know  that  they  loved  me  well.  There  have  been  times 
and  occasions  in  our  life  .  .  . 

In  vain  I  school  myself  into  forgetfulness ;  I  can- 
not quite  forget,  for  all  things  remind  me  of  my  sons. 
Alexis  himself  reminds  me  of  them  continually,  and  he 
is  constantly  in  my  sight  or  in  my  thoughts.  The  place, 


November —  The  Old  Building.  7 

too,  recalls  them  to  my  memory,  for  they  came  here  to 
hunt  the  boar  in  the  pride  of  their  early  manhood.  And 
why  should  we  endeavor  to  forget  ?  Do  we  not  wro'ng 
the  dead  when  we  dismiss  their  memory  as  too  disturb- 
ing and  importunate  ?  Let  me  rather  welcome  these 
recollections,  and  be  thankful  for  that  clearness  of  the 
faculties  which  enables  me  still  to  see  their  faces  and 
hear  their  voices  as  I  heard  and  saw  them  when  the 
only  war  they  knew  was  that  against  the  wild  boar  and 
the  wolf.  I  will  build  a  monument  to  their  memory 
near  the  Val  Sainte  Veronique.  On  the  crest  of  the 
hill  before  the  house  two  columns  of  spotless  marble 
shall  rise  high  above  the  summits  of  the  trees,  and  as 
the  marble  mellows  to  the  sunsets  of  the  years  that  are 
to  come,  so  may  their  sacrifice  appear  to  me  more  in 
harmony  with  the  great  purposes  of  the  world ! 


III. 


The  Old  Building— My  Herbarium  — -  My  Books  — A  Year  of  Retire- 
ment  —  Reading  —  Botany  —  Etching  —  Animal  Life. 

THE  day  after  our  arrival  in  our  new  home  it  rained 
incessantly,  and  not  a  ray  of  sunshine  came  to 
brighten  the  dreary  November  landscape.  We  had 
arrived  at  a  time  of  the  year  that  offered  no  pros- 
pect of  cheering  natural  appearances.  The  splendor  of 
autumn  had  utterly  faded  away;  the  clear  brightness 
of  the  frosty  winter  had  not  yet  arrived  to  brace  us 


8  November — My  Herbarium. 

with  its  healthier  influences  ;  we  had  nothing  around  us 
but  the  dulness  .of  advanced  decay.  From  sunrise  to 
sunset,  or,  more  accurately  in  a  valley  shrouded  by  mist, 
from  the  time  when  the  cloud  grew  paler  in  the  morning 
to  the  time  when  it  grew  dark  again  in  the  afternoon, 
we  remained  in  the  house  together.  Our  heavy  baggage 
arrived  from  the  distant  railway  station  in  the  middle  of 
the  day,  and  we  found  an  occupation  in  unpacking  the 
various  cases  and  in  settling  our  interior  arrangements. 
There  was  plenty  of  space  in  the  old  building,  and,  with 
unlimited  supplies  of  excellent  firewood,  we  were  under 
no  necessity  for  limiting  our  existence  to  the  apartments 
we  had  especially  selected  as  our  own.  We  had  dejeuner 
in  the  dining-room,  but  it  seemed  so  large  and  dreary, 
with  its  broad  stone  floor  and  the  black  beams  in  the 
rude  old  ceiling,  that  we  determined  not  to  eat  in  it  any 
more,  and  dined  that  evening  in  a  circular  cabinet,  which 
occupied  the  basement  of  one  of  the  round  towers  —  a 
cabinet  which  had  been  used  by  a  lady  of  our  family 
two  generations  before,  and  had  still  the  charm  of  a 
faded  elegance  that  affected  the  mind  like  the  faint  per- 
fume of  withered  flowers. 

The  German  invaders  of  Lorraine  had  carried  away 
the  greater  part  of  my  library  and  my  little  collection  of 
pictures.  My  herbarium,  which  it  had  taken  me  years 
to  collect  and  classify,  had  gone  I  knew  not  whither ; 
possibly  some  scientific  invader  may  have  been  tempted 
by  the  rarer  plants,  and  appropriated  them,  leaving  the 
rest  to  comrades  less  enlightened,  who  may  have  used 
them  to  kindle  fires.  Even  the  cabinets  that  contained 


November  —  My  Books.  9 

them  disappeared  in  the  general  ruin.  All  that  remained 
to  me  of  my  material  implements  of  culture  were  a  few 
old  books  ;  but  these,  as  it  fortunately  happened,  were 
my  dearest  friends  and  favorites.  Better  editions  may 
have  been  printed  by  the  enterprise  of  contemporary 
publishers,  but  to  my  feeling  no  copy  of  a  beloved 
author,  however  fair,  however  faultless,  can  ever  be 
worth  the  copy  that  has  long  been  my  companion. 
Books  increase  in  value  for  their  possessor  as  they 
diminish  in  salableness  at  an  auction  of  his  effects. 
The  remnant  of  what  had  been  the  best  private  library 
in  the  neighborhood  I  lived  in  had  for  me  a  precious- 
ness  far  beyond  that  of  the  finest  editions  that  were 
once  its  glory  in  the  eyes  of  others.  Especially  had  I 
loved  the  true  immortal  poets.  From  them,  and  from 
them  only,  can  we  win  that  wondrous  lore  which  en- 
chants for  us  the  whole  material  world,  and  admits  us 
into  a  fairy-land  which  is  not  illusory. 

A  year  of  absolute  retirement  would  seem  like  an 
interminable  desert  to  any  one  without  an  occupation, 
but  I  knew  from  the  experience  of  other  years  that 
when  once  we  are  absorbed  in  pursuits  that  are  at 
the  same  time  very  interesting  and  very  laborious,  the 
months  melt  away  like  a  treasure  in  the  hands  of  a 
spendthrift.  It  was  only,  indeed,  by  the  most  method- 
ical arrangement  of  our  time  that  we  could  possibly 
accomplish  the  tasks  we  had  voluntarily  undertaken. 
Besides  our  reading,  which,  for  Alexis,  was  the  most  im- 
portant of  my  plans,  I  proposed  to  collect  an  herbarium, 
to  include  the  entire  flora  of  my  woodland  property,  and 


io  November — An  Excursion. 

to  make  an  album  of  etchings  which  was  to  illustrate 
everything  of  interest  on  the  estate.  In  the  selection 
of  subjects  there  was  but  one  serious  difficulty  —  their 
inexhaustible  and  bewildering  abundance.  In  the  Val 
Sainte  Veronique  itself  there  were  groups  of  magnificent 
chestnuts,  centuries  old,  shadowing  the  woodland  road 
thc-t  leads  into  the  heart  of  the  forest ;  and  though  the 
dense  young  woods  were  cut  regularly  for  their  revenue, 
many  an  old  giant  had  been  spared  from  generation  to 
generation,  and  there  were  hollow  trunks  more  ancient 
than  monarchy  in  France,  and  far  more  deeply  rooted. 
I  desired  also  to  illustrate  the  animal  life  of  the  great 
woods,  from  the  wild  geese  flying  over  their  summits  in 
the  chill  evenings  of  the  dying  year,  to  the  deer  in  the 
sunny  glade  and  the  wolves  in  the  winter  snow. 


IV. 


An  Excursion  in  the  Forest  —  Dante's  Suffering  Trees  —  The  Forest- 
road —  A  Hill-top  —  We  go  astray  —  Observation  on  the  Adhesion  of 
Dead  Leaves  —  Analogy  in  Human  Affairs  —  Wonderful  Variety  of 
Color  —  Emerson  on  Winter  Scenery  —  The  Forest-Fear  of  Dante 
—  How  I  first  understood  it. 

ON  the  third  day  after  our  arrival  in  the  valley  the 
weather,  though  still  thickly  overcast,  was  fair 
enough  to  encourage  ideas  of  exploration,  and  we  set 
out  after  dejeuner  with  the  intention  of  making  an  ex- 
cursion in  shape  something  like  the  outline  of  a  pear, 
and  so  getting  home  again  about  dinner-time.  We 


November  —  Dante's  Suffering  Trees.       ir 

began  by  following  one  of  the  narrow  roads  which  from 
time  immemorial  have  given  access  to  the  interior  of  the 
forest.  There  is  evidence  that  some  of  these  roads 
existed  in  the  old  Gaulish  times,  and  the  engineers  of 
those  days,  trusting  to  the  strength  and  patience  of 
their  oxen,  seem  to  have  considered  mere  steepness  as 
no  objection  whatever.  The  road  we  followed  was  often 
closely  hemmed  in  on  both  sides  by  impenetrable  hedges 
of  old  beech,  whose  trunks  were  twisted  into  the  most 
fantastic  shapes  long  ago,  when  they  were  young,  and 
have  remained  so  ever  since  in  grim  deformity.  Some 
of  them  were  really  painful  to  contemplate,  the  efforts  of 
nature  had  been  so  thwarted.  They  were  like  powerful 
arms  of  men  bound  at  the  wrists  to  some  immovable 
front  of  rock,  with  muscles  swelling  in  vain  efforts  for 
deliverance.  I  thought  of  that  dreadful  fancy  of  Dante's, 
the  suffering  human  trees,  that  bled  dark  drops  of  blood 
when  a  little  twig  was  broken,  and  asked  so  pitifully, 
'  Why  dost  thou  break  me,  why  dost  thou  tear  me,  hast 
thou  no  pity  ? ' 

Perb  disse'l  Maestro  :  l  Se  tu  tronchi 
Qualche  fraschetta  d'una  d'este  piante 
Li  pensier  ch'hai  si  faran  tutti  monchi.' 
Allor  pors'io  la  mano  un  poco  avanti 
E  colsi  un  ramoscel  da  un  gran  pruno, 
E'l  tronco  suo  gridb :  '  Perche  mi  schiante  ? ' 

Da  che  fatto  fu  poi  di  sangue  bruno. 
Ricomincio  a  gridar :  '  Perche  mi  scerpi  ? 
Non  hai  tu  spirto  di  pietate  alcuno  ? ' 
After  being  hedged  in  by  these  gaunt  arms  for  the 
distance  of  nearly  a  mile,  the  road  became  less  distinctly 


12  November —  The  Forest  Road. 

separated  from  the  surrounding  forest-land ;  it  made 
several  sudden  turns,  and  finally  offered  us  a  bifurcation. 
Having  nothing  to  guide  us  but  a  general  project  of  wan- 
dering, we  took  the  side  which  seemed  most  in  our  in- 
tended direction,  and  followed  it  where  it  might  lead. 
The  wheel-ruts  soon  ceased  altogether  ;  the  road  became 
a  mere  footpath,  and  after  winding  in  an  uncertain  manner 
for  a  long  distance  emerged  at  last  on  the  very  summit 
of  a  lofty  knoll,  where,  in  the  midst  of  an  open  space  of 
greensward,  stood  four  enormous  chestnuts,  surrounded 
by  tall  bushes  of  holly  with  an  abundance  of  red  berries 
in  the  midst  of  its  varnished  green.  Although  we  were 
certainly  on  the  top  of  one  of  the  many  hills  which  carry 
this  great  forest  upon  their  ample  sides,  it  was  impossible 
to  see  anything  beyond  the  narrow  circle  of  the  open 
space  around  us.  We  were  enclosed  by  a  sylvan  wall, 
penetrable  indeed  by  a  pedestrian  traveller,  but  as  im- 
pervious to  his  vision  as  if  it  had  been  built  of  granite 
blocks.  We  were  certainly  not  on  our  own  land  ;  these 
giant  chestnuts  were  not  mine,  for  all  the  great  old 
forest-trees  that  belonged  to  me  were  known  to  me  as 
the  richest  plum-trees  in  his  orchard  are  known  to  the 
market-gardener.  It  was  impossible  to  ascertain  the 
points  of  the  compass.  The  whole  sky  was  covered 
with  one  dense  low  cloud,  not  lighter  in  one  place  than 
another,  so  that  we  could  not  guess  the  sun's  position  ; 
nor  did  any  inclination  of  the  trees,  or  any  growth  of 
moss,  give  a  reliable  indication  of  the  prevailing  wind, 
and  if  they  had  done  so  the  indication  would  have  been 
useless  to  us  in  our  ignorance  of  the  local  meteorology. 


November  —  Dead  Leaves.  13 

To  retrace  the  path  we  came  by  might  have  been  pos- 
sible, though  difficult;  but  I  felt  an  invincible  repug- 
nance to  a  mere  retreat.  So  partly  in  reliance  upon 
chance,  and  partly  trusting  an  instinct  of  locality  that 
I  cannot  account  for  or  explain  (an  animal  instinct,  like 
that  of  the  salmon  or  the  housemarten),  I  determined  to 
push  on  through  the  dense  wood  till  the  topography  of 
the  country  became  somewhat  more  intelligible  to  us. 

Before  quitting  the  great  chestnuts,  I  made  an  obser- 
vation which  confirmed  what  I  had  observed  before  with 
reference  to  the  adherence  of  dead  leaves.  These  trees, 
as  a  rule,  were  entirely  denuded  of  their  foliage  ;  but 
two  or  three  branches,  on  the  contrary,  retained  almost 
every  leaf  that  had  adorned  them  in  the  glory  of  summer 
—  changed  indeed,  in  color,  from  rich  dark  green  to  a 
lovely  pale  gold,  far  more  delicate  than  the  winter  color- 
ing of  beech  or  oak,  yet  scarcely  altered  in  form,  and  pre- 
serving great  purity  of  curve.  Now  the  question  which 
interested  me  was,  how  it  happened  that  these  branches 
retained  their  foliage  whilst  all  the  others  had  lost  it  ? 
The  answer  is,  that  a  branch  which  retains  its  foliage  has 
always  been  virtually  severed  from  the  stem  by  fract- 
ure before  the  fall  of  the  leaf^  Why  the  leaves  fall  from 
a  branch  that  shares  the  life  of  the  tree,  and  adhere  to 
one  that  is  separated  from  it,  I  am  not  scientific  enough 
to  decide  quite  positively,  but  naturally  conclude  that  it  is 
due  to  the  continuance  of  circulation  in  the  one  case  and 
its  stoppage  in  the  other,  the  leaves  adhering  when  the 
sap  has  not  been  able  to  descend,  but  detaching  them- 
selves easily  when  the  course  of  the  descending  sap  has 


14     November — Analogy  in  Human  Affairs. 

met  with  no  interruption.  This  suggested  the  reflection 
that  a  very  close  analogy  may  be  found  in  human  affairs. 
A  colony  severed  from  the  mother  country  will  often 
preserve  words,  and  even  habits  in  thought  and  action, 
which  have  dropped  off  from  the  parent  since  the  separa- 
tion took  place,  and  which  would  also  have  been  lost  by 
the  colony  if  the  old  closeness  of  connection  had  never 
been  interrupted.  The  French  Canadians  are  an  excel- 
lent instance  of  this  ;  they  have  preserved  traditional 
ways  of  thinking,  and  traditional  manners,  which  have 
dropped  off  long  since  from  the  inhabitants  of  France 
itself. 

Although  the  season  of  the  year  was  that  which  is 
generally  reputed  to  be  least  interesting,  and  most  com- 
pletely denuded  of  the  charms  of  color  ;  although  the 
sky  above  us  was  like  lead,  and  there  was  not  one  flower 
on  the  earth  beneath  :  still  it  would  have  been  impossible 
for  a  painter,  or  for  any  one  capable  of  seeing  color  in 
nature,  not  to  be  continually  interested  by  the  wonderful 
variety  around  us.  It  was  not  merely  those  pale,  golden 
leaves  of  the  broken  chestnut  branches,  but  the  rich 
green  of  the  holly  with  its  bright  red  berries,  and  the 
abundant  beech  leaves,  and  the  young  oaks  that  kept 
their  foliage  as  in  summer,  changed  only  in  hue  and  in 
the  form  of  the  shrivelled  leaves.  Amidst  intensities  of 
green,  of  moss  and  holly,  blood-red  berries,  and  foliage 
like  rusted  iron  or  faded  gilding,  the  grays  and  purples 
of  a  thousand  trunks  and  bewildering  intricate  branches 
had  a  beauty  that  is  lost  in  the  too  monotonous  verdure 
of  July.  The  American  philosopher,  Emerson,  says, 


November — Forest-Fear  of  Dante.         15 

'  The  inhabitants  of  cities  suppose  that  the  country 
landscape  is  pleasant  only  half  the  year.  I  please  my- 
self with  observing  the  graces  of  the  winter  scenery,  and 
believe  that  we  are  as  much  touched  by  it  as  by  the 
genial  influences  of  summer.  To  the  attentive  eye,  each 
moment  of  the  year  has  its  own  beauty.' 

It  was  not  without  some  feeling  of  anxiety  that  I 
quitted  that  open  space,  to  enter  once  more  the  obscurity 
of  innumerable  trees.  The  words  of  Dante  came  to  me 
again,  this  time  with  a  deeper  gravity  of  meaning  than  I 
had  ever  found  in  them  before,  — 

Mi  ritrovai  per  una  selva  oscura 
Che  la  diritta  via  era  smarrita. 

Ahi  quanto  a  dir  quaP  era  e  cosa  dura 
Questa  selva  selvaggia  ed  aspra  e  forte 
Che  nel  pensier  rinnuova  la  paura! 

Gradually  there  came  upon  me  a  certain  feeling  that 
I  had  never  yet  experienced,  but  which  Dante  had  known 
well.  Hour  after  hour  we  walked  through  that  intermin- 
able forest,  and  the  strange  new  feeling  became  more 
and  more  oppressive,  till  at  length  I  realized  what  the 
old  poet  meant  with 

Questa  selva  selvaggia  ed  aspra  e  forte. 

We  were  so  hemmed  in  by  millions  of  stems,  that, 
although  free  to  walk  everywhere,  we  were  held  in  an 
illimitable  prison.  The  trees  began  to  wear  a  hostile 
and  menacing  aspect,  as  if  we  were  wandering  amongst 
unnumbered  enemies.  They  had  no  longer  for  us  any 
grace  or  beauty,  but  united  together  in  one  horrible 
monotony.  I  remembered  the  enormous  extent  of  this 


1 6  November — A  Shepherdess. 

forest  which  covers  a  hundred  square  miles  ;  its  com- 
plicated and  difficult  geography,  not  thoroughly  known 
to  any  human  being  ;  its  endless  variety  of  hill  and  dale, 
that  it  would  take  weeks  of  travel  to  explore  in  their 
intricate  detail.  And  then  I  reflected  on  the  single  hour 
of  daylight  that  remained  to  us  —  one  hour  —  and  that 
we  were  not  only  unprovided  with  food,  but  had  no 
covering  besides  our  light  pedestrian  dress.  Alexis  had 
brought  his  gun.  I  had  my  tobacco,  and  a  good  pro- 
vision of  matches,  and  a  little  brandy  in  my  flask ;  but 
in  the  way  of  food,  not  even  so  much  as  a  biscuit. 


V. 


A  Shepherdess  —  Her  Ignorance  —  A  Shepherd  Lad  —  I  resolve  to  fol- 
low a  Rivulet  —  Emerson's  Feeling  about  the  Forest — That  of  Dante 
—  How  we  were  led  by  the  Rivulet — Our  Situation  —  Resolves  for 
the  Future  — The  Silence  of  the  Woods  — A  Wild  Sow  — We  kill  a 
little  Pig  —  Our  Bonfire  —  Signals  —  Searchers  —  Help  reaches  us  — 
Our  Geographical  Situation. 

THE  time  was  past  when  it  might  have  been  yet 
possible  to  retrace  our  steps,  and  the  only  prac- 
ticable issue  before  us  was  to  get  out  of  the  forest  as 
we  might.  I  knew  that  there  were  occasional  openings, 
little  patches  of  tilled  ground  with  rude  habitations 
for  the  woodmen,  and  in  one  of  these  openings  we 
should  probably  find  a  guide.  We  came  at  last  to  a 
clearing  of  about  five  acres  on  the  slope  of  a  hill-side, 
and  from  this  place  were  able  to  get  a  view  of  the 
surrounding  country.  All  that  was  visible  consisted 


November — A  Shepherd  Lad.  17 

chiefly  of  a  valley,  with  a  stream  at  the  bottom,  in 
character  so  precisely  like  the  Val  Ste.  Veronique  that 
I  concluded  it  to  be  the  same  rivulet,  and  therefore,  of 
course,  the  most  reliable  of  guides.  On  one  side  of  the 
clearing  passed  a  road  of  the  kind  common  in  these 
forests,  so  narrow  in  parts  that  an  ox-cart  would  graze 
the  trees  on  both  sides,  and  then  suddenly  widening 
with  verdant  margins  of  pasture  to  the  right  hand  or  to 
the  left.  In  one  of  these  places,  huddled  in  a  coarse 
striped  cloak  and  spinning  from  her  distaff,  stood  the 
first  human  being  we  met  with  in  these  solitudes,  a  shep- 
herdess with  a  flock  of  the  tiny  Morvan  sheep,  and  a 
wolfish  dog  to  guard  them.  The  dog  rushed  at  us  as  if 
we  had  been  wild  animals ;  the  girl  threw  her  sabots  at 
him,  and  hit  him  rather  severely,  uttering  violent  excla- 
mations in  a  language  entirely  unintelligible  by  us.  I 
asked  her  whither  the  road  led,  pointing  before  me,  and 
she  answered  '  a  la  foret '  (pronounced  fooret}  ;  then  I 
inquired  whither  the  road  led  in  the  other  direction,  and 
she  answered  '  a  la  pdture*  (pronounced pddture).  These 
two  words  comprised  her  entire  conception  of  geography. 
In  vain  I  mentioned  the  names  of  the  Val  Ste.  Veronique, 
of  the  villages  I  knew,  of  the  nearest  market  town,  —  all 
these  were  utterly  unknown  to  her.  Forest  and  pasture  ! 
could  we  not  see  them  with  our  eyes  ? 

We  followed  the  road  for  about  a  mile,  and  met  a 
lad  of  sixteen  with  two  curs  after  him.  Here,  at  last, 
was  a  reliable  guide.  We  asked  him  whither  the  road 
led,  and  got  for  answer  'a  lafboret;'  then  we  asked  him 
where  it  came  from,  and  he  answered  ' de  la  pddture* 


1 8  November — I  follow  a  Rivulet. 

He,  tod,  was  entirely  impervious  to  questions  about  dis- 
tant localities,  and  he  did  not  understand  French,  whether 
from  weak  intellect  or  mere  isolation  I  know  not.  'He 
spoke  the  uncouth  patois  of  these  regions,  a  language 
more  remote  from  French  than  is  either  Spanish  or 
Italian.  Yet  even  his  patois  was  spoken  with  the  great- 
est hesitation,  as  if  utterance  of  any  kind  were  a  difficulty 
for  him. 

It  being  impossible  to  gain  any  information  from 
these  dwellers  in  the  wilderness,  I  determined  to  take  a 
resolution  and  follow  the  rivulet  in  the  valley.  If  it 
were  our  own  rivulet  it  would  surely  lead  us  home- 
wards ;  if  not,  we  should  at  least  escape  the  danger  of 
wandering  uselessly  in  a  circle.  Every  stream  in  the 
forest  gets  out  of  the  forest  ultimately,  and  he  who 
follows  a  rivulet,  if  he  can  only  follow  it  long  enough, 
will  emerge  at  last  from  its  labyrinthine  dells. 

'  In  the  woods/  says  Emerson,  '  is  perpetual  youth. 
Within  these  plantations  of  God,  a  decorum  and  sanctity 
reign,  a  perennial  festival  is  dressed,  and  the  guest  sees 
not  how  he  should  tire  of  them  in  a  thousand  years.  In 
the  woods  we  return  to  reason  and  faith.  There  I  feel 
that  nothing  can  befall  me  in  life —  no  disgrace,  no 
calamity  (leaving  me  my  eyes),  which  nature  cannot 
repair.'  How  different  is  this  from  Dante's  feeling  about 
the  forest !  As  the  gloom  of  evening  settled  down  upon 
the  land  the  views  of  Dante  prevailed  with  me  more 
and  more.  I  felt  that  our  modern  conception  of  wild 
nature,  simply  as  a  field  for  the  pursuit  of  health  and 
amusement,  or  pleasant  study,  is  not  a  complete  con- 


November — Our  Situation.  19 

ception.  The  old  dread  of  the  wilderness  had  retained 
more  of  the  early  experience  of  man,  when  he  found 
himself,  in  his  weakness  and  ignorance,  in  the  presence 
of  natural  forces  that  appalled  but  did  not  charm  his 


imagination. 


The  rivulet  led  us  into  the  densest  wood  once  more. 
Our  easiest  path,  but  a  wet  one,  lay  in  the  very  bed  of 
the  stream  itself,  and  we  floundered  along,  guided  by 
twilight  glimmers  on  the  fortunately  shallow  water.  In 
this  way  we  proceeded  for  a  long  time  with  considerable 
rapidity,  and  might  have  gone  on  until  night  fell  in 
blackness,  had  we  not  met  with  an  insurmountable  dif- 
ficulty in  a  sudden  alteration  of  geological  character, 
which  made  the  rivulet  no  longer  a  practicable  path.  It 
became  closed  in  between  precipitous  rocks,  and  fell  in  a 
loud  cascade  into  the  depths  of  a  ravine  below.  Nothing 
remained  of  daylight  but  a  feeble  grayness  in  the  sky, 
every  near  object  was  invisible,  and  after  some  ineffectual 
attempts  to  get  round  the  rocky  sides  of  the  watercourse 
I  determined  to  abandon,  for  that  night,  all  further  effort 
to  reach  the  Val  Ste.  Veronique.  Most  fortunately  it  did 
not  rain,  and  we  were  in  a  perfectly  sheltered  situation. 
The  constant  exercise  of  our  long  march  (we  had  been 
walking  for  seven  hours  without  intermission)  had  kept 
us  hitherto  safe  from  cold,  but  we  could  not  prudently 
rest  without  a  fire.  I  had  matches  and  a  newspaper  in 
my  pocket  ;  we  collected  a  heap  of  the  driest  leaves  and 
twigs,  and  soon  had  the  satisfaction  of  illuminating  the 
little  dell  with  a  cheerful  blaze  of  light,  that  brought 
the  rocks  and  nearest  trees  into  the  most  vigorous  relief 


2O          November — Silence  of  the  Woods. 

against  the  forest  gloom  and  the  starless  blackness  of 
the  sky.  Near  to  us  were  some  resinous  firs,  and  under 
them  Alexis  found  quantities  of  large  cones,  rich  in  tur- 
pentine, which  kept  our  fire  up  very  brilliantly. 

I  had  carefully  economized  my  brandy,  and  now  ad- 
ministered enough  of  it  to  give  us  a  little  temporary 
comfort ;  but  we  suffered  seriously  from  hunger.  Alexis 
had  killed  nothing  with  his  gun,  or  else  we  might  have 
tried  our  skill  at  such  rough  cookery  as  the  circumstan- 
ces permitted,  but  the  cartridges  he  had  with  him  turned 
out  to  be  very  useful  to  us  ultimately.  The  lesson  of 
the  day's  misadventure  was  certainly  not  lost  upon 
either  of  us.  Alexis  declared  that  in  future  he  would 
never  trust  himself  in  the  forest  without  a  mariner's 
compass  in  his  pocket,  and  I  mentally  determined  that  on 
all  future  expeditions  we  would  carry  soldiers'  rugs  and 
a  little  supply  of  provisions.  I  had  at  least  the  consola- 
tion of  my  pipe,  which  aids  a  man  wonderfully  to  sup- 
port privation,  and  deadens  the  sense  of  hunger. 

The  hours  passed  one  by  one,  and  Alexis  was  over- 
powered with  sleep.  I  cut  a  quantity  of  heather  and 
covered  him  with  it  entirely ;  after  which  I  sat  watching 
by  his  bed,  and  supplying  fuel  to  the  fire  of  our  bivouac. 
There  is  a  death-like  silence  in  the  woods  on  a  winter's 
night,  but  I  consoled  myself  for  the  quiescence  of  the 
nightingale  by  the  torpor  of  a  great  population  of  vipers 
which  inhabit  the  crevices  of  the  rocks,  and  are  danger- 
ous things  in  summer.  No  sound  was  audible  but  the 
rushing  of  the  rapid  stream  and  the  monotonous  murmur 
of  its  cascades. 


November — A  Wild  Sow.  21 

Atout  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  I  heard,  or 
fancied  that  I  heard,  a  movement  in  the  brushwood, 
quite  clearly  distinguishable  from  the  music  of  the 
rivulet.  To  this  succeeded  a  crash  of  breaking  branches, 
and  a  wild  boar,  or  rather  sow,  dashed  through  the  water 
a  few  yards  above  our  resting-place.  She  was  followed 
by  a  well-grown  litter,  which  I  took  to  be  rather  numerous 
from  the  noise  they  made.  On  the  impulse  of  the  mo- 
ment I  discharged  both  barrels  amongst  them,  and  killed 
a  fine  little  pig,  the  rest  of  the  family  being  immediately 
lost  in  the  depths  of  the  forest.  The  discharge  aroused 
Alexis,  who  was  delighted  with  this  exploit,  and  finished 
the  poor  little  brute  with  a  hunting-knife  'of  formidable 
dimensions,  which  he  always  carries  about  him.  Here,  at 
any  rate,  were  the  materials  for  a  carnivorous  breakfast. 
But  this  was  not  the  only  consequence  of  the  incident. 
We  were  startled  soon  afterwards  by  the  report  of  a  gun 
in  the  distance,  after  too  long  an  interval  to  be  an  echo. 
The  inference  was  obvious  ;  we  were  in  communication 
with  some  gun-carrying  personage  in  the  forest,  either 
poacher  or  forester,  or  possibly  a  party  in  search  of  us 
from  the  Val  Ste.  Veronique. 

•  Instead  of  attempting  to  set  out  in  the  direction  from 
which  the  sound  proceeded,  which  would  have  been  use- 
less in  the  dark  entanglement  of  the  forest,  I  determined 
to  remain  quietly  where  we  were,  and  to  increase  our 
bonfire  as  much  as  possible,  so  that  the  reverberation 
from  it  on  the  clouds  above  might  be  strong  enough  to 
guide  any  seeker  to  our  whereabouts.  This  may  be 
done  when  the  clouds  are  low,  and  it  is  the  only  advan- 


22  November — Help  readies  us. 

tage  I  have  ever  been  able  to  discover  in  losing  yourself 
on  a  cloudy  night. 

Alexis  had  a  good  supply  of  cartridges,  so  I  told  him 
to  fire  both  barrels  every  five  minutes.  These  signals 
were  regularly  answered,  and  we  heard  to  our  satis- 
faction, by  the  increasing  loudness  of  the  distant  guns, 
that  our  friends  were  gradually  approaching.  It  was 
slow  and  toilsome  work,  however,  for  them  in  the  depth 
of  the  forest.  We  waited  an  hour  and  a  half,  firing 
regularly,  before  we  heard  a  long  cry  from  the  top  of 
the  hill.  This  we  answered,  and  twenty  minutes  later 
the  forest  was  suddenly  illuminated  by  the  glare  of 
torches,  and  a  scene  was  accidentally  composed  which  a 
painter  could  not  have  witnessed  without  finding  mate- 
rial for  his  art. 

The  farmer  who  rented  from  me  whatever  little 
pasture  and  arable  land  there  was  in  the  Val  Ste. 
Veronique,  and  my  servant  Francois,  who,  amongst 
other  peculiarities,  has  a  deep-seated  unbelief  in  his 
master's  capacity  for  taking  care  of  himself  (which  the 
present  adventure  was  not  exactly  calculated  to  remove), 
had  become  very  anxious  when  we  did  not  return  at 
dinner-time,  as  we  had  promised.  They  soon  arrived 
at  the  conclusion  that  we  had  lost  ourselves  in  the  forest, 
and  organized,  by  the  help  of  neighbors  (who  lived  five 
miles  away),  a  very  well-arranged  little  expedition  for 
our  relief.  Francois  had  taken  care  at  starting  to  bring 
provisions  in  a  heavily  charged  knapsack,  and  the  first 
thing  he  did  was  to  arrange  them  tidily  on  the  ground. 
Alexis  displayed  the  wonderful  appetite  of  his  age,  and 


November — Forest  Scenery.  23 

exhibited  in  triumph  the  ensanguined  blade  which  had 
finished  the  little  marcassin. 

Whilst  we  were  breaking  our  fast  our  geographical 
situation  was  made  clear  to  us.  In  the  first  place,  this 
was  not  the  stream  leading  to  the  Val  Ste.  Veronique, 
but  another  rivulet  leading  in  quite  a  different  direction. 
Had  we  been  able  to  follow  it  we  should  have  emerged 
from  the  forest  at  a  point  about  forty  miles  from  home. 
We  had  walked  thirty  miles,  and  were  fifteen  from  the 
Val  Ste.  Veronique  in  a  straight  line.  The  farmer  knew 
of  a  forester's  hut  within  a  reasonable  distance,  and  pro- 
posed that  we  should  go  there  when  it  was  daylight,  as 
we  all  needed  a  few  hours'  rest  to  prepare  us  for  our 
homeward  journey. 


VI. 


Scenery  of  the  interior  of  the  Forest — The  Forester's  Hut  —  Interior 
of  the  Hut  — The  Forester  and  his  Son  — A  little  pet  Wild  Boar  — 
A  Boar  that  heard  Mass  —  Jean  Bouleau  the  Forester  —  His  osten- 
sible Trade  —  He  is  a  Poacher  —  Poachers  and  Magistrates  —  An 
Indiscreet  Poacher  —  The  Temptations  of  Good  Eating  —  The  Pro- 
tectors of  Poachers  —  Professional  Braconniers  —  Their  Wonderful 
Skill  — The  Weasel  —  Alexis  fraternizes  with  the  Weasel  —  The 
Weasel  described  —  His  manners  and  habits  —  His  affected  igno- 
rance—  The  Weasel's  knowledge  of  the  Forest. 

WE  lay  round  our  fire  in    the  forest  during  the 
hours  that  remained  of  the  night,  but  at  ear- 
liest dawn  we  started  for  the  forester's  hut.     The  road 
to  it  passed  through  a  narrow  gorge,  so  enclosed  by 
steep  hills,  densely  wooded  with  young  oak,  that  it  was 


24  November —  The  Forester  s  Hut. 

impossible  to  see  more  than  two  or  three  hundred  yards 
in  any  direction.  After  walking  in  single  file  for  the 
distance  of  about  a  league,  we  came  suddenly  upon  an 
abrupt  turn  in  the  little  dell,  and  there  it  ended,  for  a 
barrier  of  hill  rose  directly  in  front  of  us,  so  steep  as  to 
be  almost  inaccessible.  There  was  a  little  open  space 
of  natural  meadow,  and  on  one  side  of  this  stood  the 
forester's  hut,  scarcely  distinguishable  from  the  dense 
vegetation  that  surrounded  it,  for  the  builder 'had  used 
material  ready  to  his  hand,  and  simply  constructed  a 
sort  of  wigwam  of  young  oak-trunks  and  branches,  with 
a  thatch  of  gorse  that  covered  both  roof  and  wall.  A 
tiny  rill  had  been  artificially  directed  to  a  spout  of  hol- 
low wood,  and  fell  in  a  little  cascade  of  the  most  perfect 
purity  on  the  stony  ground  in  front  of  the  cabin,  trick- 
ling afterwards  amongst  the  pebbles,  and  finding  its  way 
to  the  bit  of  meadow  below.  No  human  dwelling  could 
be  more  humble  and  primitive  than  this  was.  In  the 
remotest  wilds  of  America  there  may  be  houses  equally 
primitive,  but  there  can  be  no  habitations  nearer  in 
structure  and  conception  to  man's  earliest  ideal  of  a 
home.  The  inhabitants  were  already  awake,  and  we 
had  immediate  access  to  the  interior.  There  were  a 
couple  of  low  bedsteads,  made  roughly  from  young 
trees  and  covered  with  sheets  of  canvas.  There  were 
two  or  three  shelves,  with  nothing  on  them  but  a  little 
of  the  commonest  earthenware,  and  the  rest  of  the  fur- 
niture included  nothing  that  Socrates  would  have  re- 
jected as  unnecessary.  It  is  just  possible  that  Diogenes 
might  have  discovered  a  superfluity. 


November  —  A  Pet   Wild  Boar.  25 

The  inhabitants  consisted  of  the  forester  and  his  son, 
a  lad  of  fifteen,  who  seemed  three  years  younger.  They 
welcomed  us  with  a  surprised  politeness,  natural  under 
the  circumstances  ;  but  we  told  our  story,  and  this  led 
to  a  more  frank  and  intimate  acquaintance.  Our  new 
host  lived  too  far  from  the  Val  Ste.  Veronique  to  know 
much  about  our  extremity  of  the  forest,  and  my  name 
appeared  to  be  unknown  to  him,  but  he  treated  us  with 
an  equal  hospitality  in  which  there  was  a  great  deal 
of  simple  dignity.  The  conversation  turned  upon  our 
adventure,  and  when  we  told  him  about  the  little  wild 
boar,  and  displayed  the  victim,  he  gave  a  peculiar  whis- 
tle, and  immediately  a  beast  of  the  same  species,  a  little 
older,  came  from  a  dark  corner  in  the  hut  and  sought 
his  caresses  like  a  dog.  He  had  killed  the  sow  in  the 
forest,  and  taken  this  youngling  home,  at  first  with  no 
definite  intention  of  adopting  it,  but  the  creature  had 
become  so  familiar  that  it  now  formed  part  of  his  house- 
hold. *  The  wild  boar,  if  taken  young,  is  very  easily 
domesticated,  and  capable  of  strong  attachment  to  its 
human  friends.  The  men  present  immediately  began 
to  mention  other  instances  of  boars  that  had  been  taken 
and  brought  up  in  the  same  way,  and  one  was  men- 
tioned which  regularly  followed  its  master  to  the  village 
church,  and  would  not  be  excluded,  but  came  at  last,  by 
the  toleration  of  the  cure,  to  hear  mass  like  a  Christian ; 
till  finally  it  grew  to  an  alarming  size,  and  was  sold  to 
a  travelling  menagerie  for  the  sum  of  seventy  francs. 
What  a  transition  for  a  poor  creature,  that  had  loved  its 
friends  and  enjoyed  great  freedom  in  their  society,  to 


26  November — Jean  Bouleau. 

be  taken  suddenly  away  from  all  affectionate  intercourse 
and  shut  up  in  a  narrow  cage,  and  carried  from  fair  to 
fair  like  poor  Gulliver  in  Brobdignag,  but  without  the 
tender  care  of  Glumdalclitch !  As  for  the  future  fate 
of  this  one,  its  owner  admitted  with  sorrow  that  the 
time  must  ultimately  arrive  when  it  would  be  necessary 
to  have  him  '  bled ; '  but  when  that  day  came  he  hoped 
he  might  be  at  a  distance,  and  not  be  a  witness  of  the 
sacrifice. 

The  society  of  people  who  live  with  Nature,  though 
it  may  be  wanting  in  the  variety  of  thought  and  expe- 
rience that  we  find  only  in  great  cities,  has  always  some 
elements  of  interest ;  and  this  forester,  Jean  Bouleau, 
was  very  observant  in  his  own  way,  and  half  a  naturalist. 
I  learned  afterwards  that  he  had  the  reputation  of  being 
a  wonderfully  skilful  poacher ;  and  indeed  a  man  in  his 
situation,  buried  in  the  depths  of  a  vast  forest,  with  no 
neighbors  but  wild  animals,  would  naturally  be  tempted 
to  lead  the  life  of  a  trapper.  His  ostensible  trade  was 
woodcutting,  and  he  worked  at  it  sufficiently  to  give  a 
fair  color  and  pretext  to  his  existence  ;  but  a  hardy  and 
adventurous  spirit  desires  other  excitements  than  con- 
stant physical  drudgery,  and  this  man  found  in  poach- 
ing exactly  the  excitement  that  he  needed.  The  reader 
may  ask  how  a  man  so  well  known  to  be  a  poacher 
could  go  on  year  after  year  without  exciting  hostility 
enough  to  drive  him  out  of  the  country ;  but  the  diffi- 
culty in  this  part  of  France  is,  that  however  strong 
the  evidence  against  poachers,  the  magistrates  will  not 
convict.  One  conviction  certainly  did  take  place  some 


November — An  Indiscreet  Poacher.          27 

years  ago,  but  it  was  owing  to  an  extraordinary  absence 
of  tact  on  the  part  of  the  poacher  himself,  who  had  not 
yet  learned  the  refinements  of  his  trade.  The  President 
affected  to  interrogate  him  with  great  severity,  on  which 
the  prisoner  was  simple  enough  to  answer,  '  What  ?  don't 
you  know  me  ?  I'm  the  man  that  supplies  your  own 
kitchen  with  game.  It  was  I  who  sold  that  haie  to 
your  cook  only  last  week.'  '  Silence,  prisoner ! '  shouted 
both  the  President  and  the  Procureur  Imperial,  and  the 
man  was  condemned  at  once ;  not  for  poaching,  but  for 
indiscretion.  The  simple  truth  is,  that  the  poachers  are 
the  regular  purveyors  of  all  who  have  a  taste  for  game  ; 
and  as  magistrates  and  other  official  persons  know  that 
their  kitchens  are  supplied  by  persons  of  this  class,  their 
lenity  may  be  counted  upon  if  only  the  prisoner  has  the 
tact  to  play  his  part  in  the  little  comedy  so  as  not  to 
compromise  his  betters.  Even  the  dignitaries  of  the 
Church  are  not  proof  against  the  temptations  of  good 
eating,  and  sometimes  consume  viands  which  have  not 
been  come  by  either  legally  or  honestly.  There  was  a 
certain  Bishop,  now  dead,  who  took  his  share  of  re- 
sponsibility in  these  matters  with  a  pleasant  humor. 
Wishing  to  eat  venison  when  not  quite  in  season,  he  sent 
half  the  body  of  the  deer  that  tempted  him  as  a  present 
to  the  Prefect,  who  lived  in  the  same  town,  and  accom- 
panied the  gift  by  the  following  little  note,  — '  Parta- 
geons  la  responsabilite" :  chargez-vous  du  temporel ;  je 
me  charge  du  spiritual.1 

Sometimes  a  few  sportsmen  unite  to  prosecute  poach- 
ers, but  their  efforts  encounter  the  perpetual  difficulty 


2  8         November  —  Protectors  of  Poachers. 

that  the  lawyers  and  magistrates  have — private  feel- 
ings of  the  tenderest  regard  for  the  clever  and  ad- 
venturous men  who  supply  the  greatest  delicacies  of 
their  tables.  Some  sportsmen  heard  that  a  great  game 
dinner  was  being  cooked  at  a  certain  restaurant,  and 
they  required  the  Prociireur  Imperial  to  give  a  warrant 
for  seizure.  Armed  with  this  and  accompanied  by  the 
police,  they  entered  the  kitchen  where  the  prepara- 
tions were  busily  going  forward.  On  the  spits  before 
the  fire  were  quails,  partridges,  pheasants  —  evidence 
enough  against  the  master  of  the  establishment ;  but 
he  simply  answered  that,  although  the  dinner  might 
not  be  legal,  for  the  game  was  not  killed  in  season, 
still  it  would  be  useless  to  prosecute  him,  because  the 
feast  had  been  ordered  by  the  President  of  the  Assizes 
himself.  The  zeal  of  the  trouble-fete  sportsmen  cooled 
at  once  on  receiving  this  piece  of  information,  and  they 
desisted  The  plain  truth  is,  that  conscientiousness  in 
game-preserving  is  almost  entirely  unknown  in  France, 
and  the  only  people  who  desire  a  different  state  of 
things  are  the  large  land-owners,  who  are  not  power- 
ful enough  to  alter  the  habits  of  the  whole  nation. 
Every  town  of  importance  enough  for  the  interchange 
of  hospitality  is  sure  to  maintain  a  good  many  isolated 
braconniers,  who  supply  its  larders  with  game  both  in 
and  out  of  what  may  be  legally  the  season.  They  are 
less  what  an  Englishman  understands  by  the  word 
poacher,  than  hunters  and  trappers  by  profession,  like 
their  brethren  in  the  forests  of  America.  There  is  still 
great  variety  of  game  in  France,  and  no  country  could 


Novem  ber  —  Professional  Braconniers.       2  9 

be  more  favorable  to  it  if  preservation  of  any  serious 
kind  could  be  resorted  to  ;  but  under  present  circum- 
stances, when  it  is  impossible  to  protect  it  efficiently,  it 
would  be  impossible  also  to  purchase  game  without  the 
assistance  of  the  braconnier.  The  land-owners  do  not 
sell,  they  have  only  enough  for  their  own  tables  ;  the 
sportsmen  who  live  in  towns,  and  consider  themselves 
rewarded  if,  after  a  day's  march,  they  return  home  with 
a  single  partridge,  are  not  skilful  enough  to  do  more 
than  procure  themselves  a  luxury  from  time  to  time  :  so 
there  is  clearly  a  sort  of  need  for  the  true  professional 
braconnier,  who  is  to  ordinary  sportsmen  what  the  artist 
is  to  the  amateur,  and  can  get  game  in  quantity  enough 
to  supply  the  market  regularly,  though  often  at  high 
prices.  The  skill  of  these  men  is  often  wonderful,  but 
no  one  becomes  a  braconnier  who  has  not  a  strong 
natural  aptitude  for  the  chase,  with  all  those  animal 
instincts  and  physical  powers  which  are  necessary  to  an 
incessant  warfare  against  the  cunning  and  swiftness  of 
the  brute.  These  instincts  and  powers  gain  greatly 
both  in  delicacy  and  strength  by  incessant  use,  and  after 
ten  or  fifteen  years  of  a  life  in  the  woods  such  a  man 
as  Jean  Bouleau  becomes  a  hunting  animal,  the  most 
patient  and  cunning  of  all  animals,  and  one  of  the  most 
enduring.  If  there  is  a  fish  in  the  river,  or  a  quadruped 
in  the  woods,  he  will  have  that  fish,  he  will  have  that 
quadruped,  when  the  common  sportsman  might  as  hope- 
fully propose  to  himself  to  arrest  the  wild  swans  in  their 
longest  and  loftiest  travelling  in  the  upper,  air.  I  found 
afterwards  that  this  man  was  never  called  by  his  own 


3O  November —  The  Weasel. 

name,  but  was  known  in  the  forest  and  its  outskirts  as 
'  the  Weasel/  and  by  this  sobriquet  we  will  speak  of  him 
in  the  present  narrative. 

There  is  an  instinct  in  the  boyish  nature  by  which 
it  is  strongly  attracted  to  whatever  is  primitive  in  man, 
and  I  observed  without  surprise  that  Alexis  fraternized 
almost  immediately  with  the  Weasel,  even  before  he 
became  aware  of  the  man's  remarkable  talents  and  ac- 
complishments. It  immediately  occurred  to  me,  that 
if  Jean  Bouleau  were  guilty  of  no  greater  crime  than 
supplying  the  larders  of  rich  citizens  with  game,  which 
they  offered  him  the  strongest  temptations  to  procure 
for  them,  merely  because  they  had  not  skill  and  en- 
durance enough  to  procure  it  for  themselves,  I  need  not 
throw  any  hindrance  in  the  way  of  an  intimacy  of  this 
kind,  which  would  be  an  education  for  Alexis  in  habits 
"A  of  self-reliance  and  observation,  and  the  best  possible 
introduction  to  the  study  of  natural  history. 

The  Weasel  was  an  excellent  specimen  of  the  race 
of  men  that  he  belonged  to,  as  pure  a  Celt  as  any  in 
all  France.  We,  who  belong  to  the  taller  races  of  man- 
kind, are  rather  apt  to  undervalue  the  qualities  of  the 
Celt.  His  superiorities  may  be  summed  up  in  rapidity 
of  intelligence  and  of  action.  The  Weasel  was  in 
stature  even  below  the  low  standard  of  his  race,  but 
he  was  beautifully  built,  with  legs  and  arms  fit  for  a 
painter's  model,  and,  notwithstanding  his  labor  as  a 
woodcutter,  the  hands  retained  an  almost  feminine 
delicacy.  The  hair  on  his  head  was  richly  abundant, 
black,  and  curly  ;  but  the  beard  was  scanty,  like  that 


November — The  Weasel  Described.         31 

of  an  adolescent.  The  eyes  were  like  the  eyes  of  a  wild 
animal,  quite  clear  and  brilliant,  but  unpleasantly  rapid 
in  their  movements.  He  spoke  in  the  most  good- 
humored  manner,  and  after  the  first  quarter  of  an  hour 
became  extremely  polite  to  us.  '  Would  we  not  accept 
something  to  eat  ?  he  would  do  what  he  could  for  our 
entertainment.'  Having  kept  a  little  inn  some  years 
before,  he  confessed  to  some  skill  in  cookery,  and  pro- 
duced as  a  specimen  of  it  a  large  earthen  pan  filled  with 
civet  de  litvre.  He  had  wine,  too,  rather  rough  to  the 
palate,  but  sound  —  vin  du  pays,  grown  in  a  little  ex- 
perimental vineyard  on  the  outskirts  of  the  forest,  with 
sufficiently  good  soil  and  a  southern  aspect,  but  much 
too  high  above  the  level  of  the  sea  for  any  delicacy  of 
flavor.  There  were  goats'  cheeses  of  his  own  making, 
which  were  excellent ;  and  to  conclude,  he  gave  us 
coffee  and  a  dram  of  genievre,  which  consisted  of  brandy 
made  from  pressed  grapes,  in  which  he  had  steeped 
berries  from  the  juniper  bushes  that  abounded  in  the 
forest.  These  luxuries,  and  the  cigarettes  he  smoked 
with  us  afterwards,  were  quite  enough  to  prove  that 
the  Weasel  did  not  really  and  truly  belong  to  the  class 
of  woodcutters  by  his  habits  (for  they  live  like  ascetics), 
nor  did  he  appear  in  the  least  anxious  to  go  to  his  daily 
labor.  His  earlier  life  as  an  innkeeper,  and  his  fre- 
quent visits  to  the  city,  where  he  ate  in  the  kitchens  of 
his  patrons,  had  given  him  a  taste  for  good  living,  which 
may  have  been  one  of  the  incentives  to  his  career  as  a 
braconnier. 

It  became  evident  in  the  course  of  our  conversation 


32        November — Knowledge  of  the  Forest. 

that  his  ignorance  of  the  Val  Ste.  Veronique  had  been 
affected,  probably  to  shield  himself  from  the  suspicion 
of  poaching  on  my  estate.  The  truth  was  that  the 
whole  of  the  forest  was  known  to  this  man,  and  proba- 
bly to  him  only.  He  could  find  his  way  through  its 
intricate  hills  and  valleys  by  day  or  night,  in  fog  or 
sunshine  ;  he  needed  no  mariner's  compass,  but  went 
about  guided  by  the  marvellous  instinct  of  locality. 
His  talk  about  the  forest  interested  us  exceedingly,  and 
he  offered  to  guide  us  if  ever  we  felt  disposed  to  pur- 
sue our  explorations.  It  was  an  offer  not  to  be  rejected 
for  the  future,  but  for  the  time  being  we  felt  more  dis- 
posed to  return  homewards  with  our  relieving  party. 
After  a  rest  of  three  hours  at  the  Weasel's  cabin,  we 
set  off  on  our  long  march,  and  arrived  at  home  before 
nightfall.  The  principal  result  of  our  adventure  was  a 
feeling  of  the  awfulness  of  the  forest,  which  was  par- 
tially diminished  by  subsequent  familiarity,  but  never 
quite  effaced.  We  never  set  out  on  any  excursion 
afterwards  without  a  mariner's  compass  and  a  small 
supply  of  provisions. 


December — Indoor  Studies.  33 


VII. 

I  resolve  to  live  in  the  Present  —  Alexis  —  How  we  passed  December  — 
Wild  Boars  and  Wolves  —  Strength  of  the  Wolf  — Courage  of  a 
Shepherdess  —  The  Wild  Boar  Eatable  —  Wintry  Splendor  of  Janu- 
ary— Beauty  of  Dried  Leaves  —  Oak-leafage  in  January  —  Common 
Hornbeam  —  Leaves  of  Hornbeam  in  January  —  Winter  foliage  of 
the  Beech  —  Its  Form  and  Color — Rich  color  of  the  Quince-tree  in 
January  —  Common  Bramble. 

THE  weather,  which  had  been  gloomy  since  our 
arrival  in  the  Val  Ste.  Ve"ronique,  now  became 
more  cheerful,  and  as  we  were  more  settled  in  our  new 
home  the  beauty  of  Nature  grew  more  evident  and  more 
satisfying.  In  times  of  mental  disturbance  from  what- 
ever cause,  from  the  pressure  of  affairs,  or  anxieties,  or 
sorrow,  we  do  not  see  Nature  clearly,  nor  do  we  see  it 
either  in  the  dulness  of  ennui.  A  certain  middle  state 
is  needed  between  anxiety  and  too  stagnant  calm,  in 
which  the  mind  does  not  either  suffer  from  the  sense  of 
pressure  on  the  one  hand,  nor  yet,  on  the  other,  become 
dulled  from  the  want  of  use.  Every  day  my  sorrow  pro- 
duced less  of  disturbing  pain,  and  knowing  the  past  to 
be  wholly  beyond  my  power,  I  resolved  to  live  as  much 
as  possible  in  the  present.  This  was  rendered  the  easier 
by  the  companionship  of  Alexis,  who,  with  the  natural 
buoyancy  and  activity  of  his  age,  soon  entered  with  great 
eagerness  into  the  pleasures  of  our  new  existence,  whilst 
he  willingly  accepted  the  studious  discipline  which  I  had 
felt  to  be  necessary  for  both  of  us. 

The  month  of  December  was  passed  in  indoor  stud- 
ies, with  occasional  excursions  in  the  forest,  undertaken 

3 


34  December  —  Boars  and  Wolves. 

rather  for  sport  than  observation.  Few  incidents  of 
importance  occurred  to  us  during  these  wintry  weeks. 
The  neighborhood  of  our  own  valley  was  ffequently 
visited  by  wild  boars,  which  of  late  years  had  been 
more  numerous  than  ever,  whilst  the  wolves  were  be- 
coming rarer.  The  peasants  affirm  that  this  is  an 
inevitable  law,  that  the  wolf  and  the  wild  boar  always 
increase  or  diminish  inversely.  Why  this  is  so  I  have 
not  yet  been  able  to  ascertain,  for  these  animals  do  not 
make  war  upon  each  other  ;  but  there  may  be  a  mutual 
jealousy  or  dislike.  However,  although  the  wolves  may 
be  rarer  in  this  forest  than  they  have  been  in  former 
years,  there  are  still  quite  enough  of  them  to  occupy  the 
attention  of  the  shepherds  on  its  outskirts.  About  the 
middle  of  December  I  happened  to  witness  an  incident 
which  is  not  very  rare.  A  few  sheep  were  grazing 
quietly  in  a  little  sloping  pasture  along  the  wood's  edge, 
when  an  animal  first  crept  out  cautiously  and  then 
rushed  at  the  nearest  sheep.  That  animal  was  a  wolf, 
and  his  immense  strength  was  proved  by  his  manner 
of  dealing  with  his  victim.  He  got  his  head  under  the 
sheep's  belly  and  threw  her  weight  upon  his  own  neck, 
her  four  feet  beating  the  air.  Holding  her  quite  firmly 
in  this  position  with  his  teeth,  the  wolf  had  strength 
enough  to  gallop  very  rapidly  up  the  steep  slope  back 
to  the  impenetrable  density  of  the  copsewood,  where  it 
was  of  no  use  trying  to  follow  him.  Now  the  wolf  in 
this  country  is  not  a  very  large  animal,  and  a  feat  like 
this  implies  a  degree  of  muscular  and  constitutional 
power  which  is  relatively  enormous.  I  could  not  help 


January —  Wintry  splendor.  35 

admiring  the  courage  of  the  little  shepherdess  whose 
flock  had  been  thus  suddenly  invaded.  She  was  very 
much  irritated  at  the  impudence  of  the  wolf,  but  not 
alarmed  by  his  ferocity  ;  and  she  threw  her  wooden  shoe 
after  him  as  an  expression  of  most  earnest  though  in- 
efficacious hostility,  uttering  at  the  same  time  sentiments 
of  her  own  in  patois  of  extraordinary  volubility,  which 
were  certainly  not  benedictions.  The  girl's  father  told 
me  afterwards  that  on  one  occasion  she  had  actually 
beaten  a  wolf  till  he  retreated,  and  there  are  so  many 
anecdotes  of  a  similar  character  that  I  infer  a  certain 
human  influence  over  these  animals,  which  as  they  are 
of  canine  race  may  have  something  of  canine  deference 
for  humanity. 

The  wild  boar  has  one  indisputable  advantage  over 
the  wolf  —  he  is  eatable.  There  is  always  wild  boar  in 
some  form  or  other  during  the  winter  months  in  the  lar- 
der at  the  Val  Ste.  Veronique.  It  was  a  fancy  of  mine 
that  our  guns  ought  to  supply  a  great  part  of  our  food, 
and  they  did  so  during  what  remained  of  the  season. 

The  month  of  January  opened  splendidly,  with  sun- 
shine in  the  gray  and  gold  of  the  forest.  I  think  that 
the  sadness  so  often  attributed  to  winter  scenery  is  due 
much  more  to  the  prevalence  of  cloud  and  fog,  and  to 
the  chilly,  uncomfortable  temperature,  than  to  the  state 
of  vegetation.  The  color  of  winter  scenery  is  not  with- 
out elements  of  variety  and  even  brilliance.  The  leaves^ 
of  the  preceding  year  are  important,  both  for  the  rich- 
ness of  the  tints  they  give,  and,  when  seen  close  at  hand, 
for  the  fixed  beauty  of  their  forms,  A  leaf  that  has 


January  —  Oak-leafage. 

the  autumn  on  the  tree,  and  dried  there,  is  always 
sure  to  be  well  worth  drawing,  for  the  force  and  variety 
of  its  curvature.  Even  in  January  oak-leafage  is  rich 
upon  the  trees,  and  though  its  color  is  often  too  red 
and  coppery  to  be  altogether  agreeable  to  the  eye,  still 
it  breaks  the  monotony  of  the  gray  stems.  Saplings 
retain  their  leaves  longest,  and  there  are  varieties  of 
oak  which  have  a  pale  yellowish-brown  that  a  painter 
might  accept  with  pleasure.  The  common  hornbeam 
also  preserves  its  leaves  far  into  the  following  year,  and 
the  underwood  of  this  forest  is  full  of  it.  Hardly  a 
single  leaf  of  hornbeam  is  missing  in  the  month  of 
January,  but  every  one  of  them  is  curled  up  with  a 
graceful  twist,  showing  the  lines  of  ribs  under  it  quite 
distinctly,  even  at  a  distance  of  several  yards.  There  is 
no  material  better  than  dried  oak  and  hornbeam  for  the 
study  of  natural  curvature,  because  you  can  carry  a  sprig 
home  with  you,  and  it  will  retain  all  its  forms,  day  after 
day,  as  if  the  leaves  were  made  of  metallic  gold.  The 
hornbeam  underwood  is  splendid  in  the  slanting  sun- 
shine of  a  January  afternoon.  The  beech,  too,  is  impor- 
tant for  its  winter  foliage,  which  remains,  almost  all  of  it, 
in  situations  sheltered  from  the  winds.  The  color  is  a 
beautiful  light  red  brown,  and  the  form  of  the  leaf  very 
perfect  indeed,  with  a  good  surface.  The  roads  in  the 
forest  about  the  Val  Ste.  Veronique  are  often  bordered 
on  both  sides  with  trunks  of  beech,  and  the  effect  in 
January  is  rich  in  the  extreme,  on  account  of  the  splendid 
freshness  of  the  green  mosses,  which  are  in  perfection 
and  give  the  best  possible  contrast  to  the  beech-leaves. 


January — The  Quince-tree.  37 

No  tree  in  January  is  so  variously  rich  in  color  as 
the  quince-tree.  The  branches  (so  wonderfully  tortuous 
and  interlaced)  are  tinted  of  a  summer-like  green  — 
painted,  I  may  say,  by  Nature  with  the  tiniest  of  her 
green  mosses  ;  whereas  the  leaves,  of  which  very  many 
are  still  Remarkably  perfect  in  form,  are  of  a  rich  red 
brown,  and  the  under  side  is  of  a  pale  golden  brown, 
with  a  little  down  remaining.  The  most  decayed  leaves 
are  a  good  deal  darker.  Now,  although  the  oak,  beech, 
or  hornbeam,  still  retain  their  leaves  in  the  following 
year,  they  offer  but  little  variety  of  hue  ;  and  though  a 
sprig  of  oak  might  instruct  and  occupy  a  designer,  the 
quince-tree  would  occupy  a  colorist.  So,  indeed,  would 
the  common  bramble,  with  its  crimson  or  purple  stalk 
and  leaves,  often  still  retaining  a  perfectly  fresh  green, 
others  being  of  a  dark,  ochrous  red,  but  still  very  perfect 
in  their  form. 


VIII. 

Deschanel's  description  of  an  English  Landscape  Painter  —  Botany  and 
Art — An  Effect  in  January — The  Harmony  of  Gray  and  Gold  — 
How  Diaz  would  have  given  it  —  Sunset-light  on  Dead  Foliage  — 
Use  of  Scientific  Knowledge  —  The  Microscope  —  Use  of  a  Nomencla- 
ture—  Drawing  Plants  —  Jules  Jacquemart's  way  of  Drawing  Plants 
—  Memoranda  —  Colors  of  the  Wintry  Landscape  —  Fanaticism  about 
Nature  —  Eglantine  —  The  rich  green  of  Broom  —  Woods  in  Mass  — 
Edges  of  Woods  —  Birches  —  Lichen. 

DESCHANEL,  in  his  clever  and  amusing  '  Essai 
de  Critique  naturelle,'  gives  a  description  of  an 
English  landscape-painter  addicted  to  botanical  study ; 


3  8  January  —  Botany  and  Art. 

a  description  slightly  caricatured,  yet  probably  drawn 
from  some  living  instance,  and  accurate  in  the  main : 
*  II  s'en  va  herboriser  par  champs,  s'assure  que  tel  vege- 
table a  les  feuilles  pointues  ou  decoupees  de  telle  faqon, 
que  telle  fleurette  a  une  telle  corolle  et  tant  de  petales  ; 
qu'il  y  a  d'ailleurs,  dans  la  nature  des  rouges  violents, 
des  verts  crus,  des  jaunes  impitoyables,  beaucoup  de 
violet/  &c.  Well,  this  may  be  true  with  reference  to 
some  painters  of  that  young  realist  school  which  was 
flourishing  in  England  when  M.  Deschanel  wrote  his 
book,  and  he  may  have  met  with  some  English  artists 
who  were  also  botanists  ;  but  the  harm  is  not  in  the 
study  of  plants,  it  is  in  the  forgetfulness  of  large  relations 
to  which  this  minute  observation  of  Nature  has  occasion- 
ally led  those  who  were  addicted  to  it.  It  is  well  to 
know  the  plants  with  a  loving  familiarity  that  observes 
the  minutest  detail,  but  the  great  harmonies  of  natural 
effect  and  color  concern  the  landscape-painter  more 
closely.  Here,  for  example,  is  an  effect  which,  if  painted 
in  a  masterly  manner,  with  sufficient  taste  and  feeling, 
would  reward  the  labor  of  an  artist :  One  day  in  Jan- 
uary I  was  riding  in  the  forest,  where  the  ground  is 
closely  planted  with  young  oaks,  and  the  sun  was  setting 
behind  them.  The  material  was  almost  monotonous  in 
its  simplicity,  —  one  species  of  tree,  and  a  sunset  with 
no  elaboration  of  cloud-form,  but  merely  a  suffusion  of 
;  yellow  light  in  a  sky  heavily  charged  with  vapor.  The 
trunks  of  the  trees  were  all  gray,  the  sun-gold  pale 
yellow ;  and  as  the  light  was  well  concentrated,  and 
brilliantly  scatteied  to  right  and  left,  but  always  from 


January  —  An  Effect  in  January.         39 

one  central  point,  it  was  just  one  of  those  simple  and 
harmonious  arrangements  of  light  and  color  which  are 
adapted  to  the  purposes  of  art.  It  happened,  too,  that 
this  color-harmony  of  gold  and  gray  was  precisely  the 
one  which  an  artist  may  attack  without  incurring  the 
certainty  of  defeat  from  the  unapproachableness  of 
natural  illumination ;  for  yellow  is  the  one  color  which 
may  be  made  luminous  in  painting  without  much  sacri- 
fice of  its  chromatic  quality.  Had  the  sunset  been  a  red 
one,  the  difficulty  (as  every  painter  knows)  would  have 
been  immeasurably  increased ;  and,  indeed,  would  have 
involved  the  necessity  of  painting  the  whole  subject  in 
so  low  a  key,  that  the  beautiful  grays  of  the  forest 
would  have  been  lost  in  dark  neutral  tints  far  below 
the  pearly  tones  of  Nature.  This  would  have  been  seen 
by  an  artist  like  Diaz  as  a  flashing  of  gold  on  gray  in- 
tricacy, and  he  would  have  painted  it  exactly  in  the  way 
best  fitted  to  convey  that  impression.  Another  very 
fine  effect,  often  visible  in  winter  at  the  hour  of  sun- 
set, is  the  illumination  of  the  trees  to  the  east  of  you. 
When  the  light  of  sunset  catches  the  dead  foliage  of 
a  forest  of  oaks  their  tops  burst  into  sudden  flame, 
so  that  the  forest  seems  all  on  fire.  The  impression  is 
greatly  heightened  if  you  are  unable,  from  your  posi- 
tion, to  see  the  western  sky,  which  is  the  origin  of  the 
light.  Now,  for  the  powerful  rendering  of  such  effects 
as  these,  the  knowledge  of  plants  need  only  be  that 
which  every  artist  is  sure  to  possess  who  has  been  in  the 
habit  of  sketching  from  Nature  ;  but  whenever  a  painter 
desires  to  give  something  of  the  beauty  of  foreground 


^o      January  —  Use  of  Scientific  Knowledge. 

detail,  and  he  may  well  desire  this  without  abandoning 
his  pictorial  purposes  and  intentions,  then  it  is  most 
convenient  for  him  to  know  the  plants  scientifically.  I 
cannot  think  that  the  Englishman  in  M.  Deschanel's 
book  was  wrong  even  in  using  a  microscope,  though 
the  idea  conveyed  is  that  he  did  so  in  order  to  be.  able 
to  delineate  microscopically.  There  is  an  obvious  non- 
sequitur  here.  It  does  not  follow  that  because  an  artist 
happens  to  use  a  microscope  to  dissect  some  plant  in 
order  that  he  may  afterwards  remember  it,  he  will  neces- 
sarily draw  the  plant  otherwise  than  as  it  simply  appears 
to  the  naked  eye — to  the  educated  eye  —  in  its  sub- 
ordinate place  in  Nature.  Possibly  M.  Deschanel  might 
argue  that  the  landscape-painter  need  not  trouble  him- 
self even  about  the  names  of  plants,  since,  he  does  not 
write  their  names  upon  his  canvas,  and  no  doubt  these 
plants  have  existed  for  innumerable  generations  before 
any  nomenclature  was  contrived  for  them  ;  still  he  may 
surely  avail  himself  of  what  is  nothing  more  than  a  con- 
venient memoria  technica  all  ready  to  his  hand.  The 
objection  does  not  seem  to  be  so  much  to  the  knowledge 
of  a  little  botany,  as  to  the  habit  of  drawing  plants 
minutely  in  isolation  ;  and  this  habit  is  not  injurious  for 
the  knowledge  which  it  conveys,  but  jecause  it  en- 
courages us  to  neglect  the  more  important  truths  of  re- 
lation, and  makes  us  think  we  have  done  something 
good  and  useful,  when,  in  fact,  we  are  busy  in  an  occu- 
pation which  is  not  fine  art,  and  which  is  incomparably 
easier  than  fine  art.  Any  young  student  whose  eye  for 
form  has  attained  a  tolerable  degree  of  accuracy  may 


January  —  Memoranda.  4 1 

soon  draw  studies  of  detached  leaves  very  beautifully, 
and  then  he  is  likely  to  fall  into  a  sort  of  mechanical 
routine  which  is  the  indolence  of  the  industrious  in  all 
the  handicraft  trades.  The  only  kind  of  study  atr  all 
resembling  this,  which  may  be  permitted  to  a  real  artist, 
is  work  done  on  the  principles  of  Jules  Jacquemart  in 
his  etchings  of  flowers.  There  you  have  leaf-drawing 
certainly,  and  careful  copying  of  petals  and  calices,  yet 
always  subordinated  to  the  effect  of  a  bouquet  as  a 
mass. 

Before  quitting  the  subject  of  leaf-drawing  let  me 
add,  that  careful  memoranda  of  leaves  and  other  objects 
may  often  be  done  with  great  advantage  by  those  who 
are  not  troubled  with  any  artistic  ambition.  They  aid 
the  memory  wonderfully,  and  enable  it  to  retain  truths 
of  form  and  color  with  an  accuracy  that  may  be  of  the 
greatest  advantage  in  many  studies  and  occupations. 
Much  mechanical  drawing  is  bad,  because  the  draughts- 
man has  looked  only  to  those  characteristics  of  plants 
which  may  be  technically  described  in  scientific  language  : 
these  things  he  sees,  but  he  fails  to  see  the  beauty  of 
natural  curvature  even  in  those  very  forms  where  it  is 
most  conspicuous.  Now  it  would  be  perfectly  possible, 
and  a  worthy  object  of  ambition  to  any  student  who 
really  loved  Nature  in  a  catholic  and  comprehensive  way, 
to  preserve  the  strictest  botanical  truth  in  the  delineation 
of  plants,  and  yet  add  to  it  the  true  loveliness  of  their 
forms,  the  exquisite  changes  of  curve  and  surface  which 
the  accidents  of  perspective  are  incessantly  producing. 
Such  an  enterprise  might  not  be  directly  remunerative 


42  January  —  Eglantine. 

in  the  pecuniary  sense,  for  scientific  students  appear  to 
be  satisfied  with  the  sort  of  drawing  which  sets  down 
what  they  want  to  know,  whilst  lovers  of  art  are  satisfied 
with  nothing  short  of  full  artistic  synthesis  both  in  con- 
ception and  execution,  and  yet  the  sort  of  work  I  now 
suggest  would  reward  the  laborer  by  certain  delicate, 
intimate  satisfactions  of  its  own. 

There  are  often  very  brilliant  colors  in  the  wintry 
landscape,  but  the  difficulty  in  making  artistic  use  of 
the  material  that  it  presents  would  be  to  harmonize  the 
color-material  into  synthesis.  You  may  find  very  fresh- 
looking  greens,  and  very  bright  reds,  but  there  is  a  want 
of  quieter  color  in  their  neighborhood  sufficiently  re- 
sembling them  in  quality  to  lead  up  to  them  as  a  climax. 
The  coloring  of  Nature  is  not  always  good  or  available 
for  art,  any  more  than  all  her  plants  for  food,  and  it  is 
one  of  the  first  results  of  culture  in  an  artist  when  he 
is  able  to  perceive  this.  It  is  mere  fanaticism  to  speak 
of  the  fortuitous  arrangements  of  color  which  occur  in 
natural  scenery  as  examples  of  divine  art  which  it  is 
impiety  to  criticise.  The  simple  truth  is,  that  a  plant 
will  bud  or  fructify  at  a  time  determined  by  the  action 
of  heat  or  moisture  upon  its  vessels,  without  the  least 
reference  to  its  effect  upon  a  color-composition  in  the 
landscape.  For  instance,  you  may  have  a  bush  of  eglan- 
tine, which  will  be  a  perfect  mass  of  vermilion  on  account 
of  its  fruit.  The  stalks  will  be  a  very  dark  purple  in 
shade,  but  crimson  in  the  evening  light,  and  they  inten- 
sify the  vermilion  of  the  berries.  Ten  to  one,  this  piece 
of  splendor  will  be  entirely  isolated,  and  it  will  kill  all 


Ja  nuary  —  L  ichen.  4  3 

the  delicate  coloring  in  its  neighborhood,  as  a  scarlet 
coat  kills  a  modest  landscape  in  the  Academy.  Or 
you  may  have  the  fine  rich  green  of  broom,  most  valu- 
able in  itself,  especially  in  large  masses,  yet  by  its  very 
richness  likely  to  make  you  feel  more  acutely  the  wintry 
poverty  of  the  decayed  vegetation  around  it,  and  the 
naked  branches  overhead.  A  judicious  artist  might 
avail  himself  of  these  materials,  but  he  would  never 
permit  them  to  injure  the  unity  of  his  work,  a  kind  of 
unity  necessary  in  human  art,  but  outside  of  the  aims  of 
Nature.  The  seasons  when  Nature  is  most  harmonious 
are  the  late  summer  and  the  earliest  weeks  of  autumn, 
but  in  winter  and  spring  she  colors  accidentally  and  in 
patches.  Woods  in  the  mass,  however,  are  often  grandly 
harmonious  even  in  January,  with  their  rich  brown  in 
nearest  scenery  passing  through  purple  in  the  middle 
distance  to  a  deep  neutral  tint  on  distant  hills.  On  the 
edges  of  woods  the  white  stems  of  the  birches  tell  very 
effectually  against  dark  purple  as  silvery  lines,  even  at 
a  considerable  distance.  In  the  immediate  foreground 
all  lichens  and  mosses  assume  an  unusual  importance 
during  winter  ;  in  the  case  of  the  mosses  because  they 
are  really  more  brilliant,  as  they  prosper  and  grow  in 
moisture,  whilst  the  lichens  gain  a  more  than  common 
degree  of  prominence  from  the  comparative  poverty  of 
the  decayed  vegetation  around  them.  There  are  hedges 
so  invaded  by  pale  green  tufted  lichen  that  it  becomes 
in  winter  the  principal  element  of  their  coloring ;  and 
not  a  disagreeable  element,  being  delicate  in  hue  not- 
withstanding its  opacity. 


44  January  —  Wintry  Landscape. 


IX. 


Wintry  Landscape  — Mummy  Plants  —  Common  .  Teazle  —  The  Great 
Mullein  —  Ferns  and  Grasses  —  The  Blackthorn  —  The  Whitethorn 
—  Coloring  of  Rushes  —  Mistletoe — Minute  Mosses  —  Viburnum  — 
Splendor  of  Berries  in  Sunset  Light — Mountain  Ash  —  Hazel  — 
Structure  of  Trunks  and  Branches  —  Walnut  —  Oak  —  Ash  —  Poplar 
— Alder  —  Horse-Chestnut. 

THE  wintry  landscape  is  a  museum  of  dried  vege- 
tation, bearing  much  the  same  resemblance  to 
the  verdant  wealth  of  summer  that  a  mummy  does  to 
a  living  human  being,  yet  with  the  difference  that  the 
vegetable  mummy  often  retains  the  most  graceful  ele- 
gance ;  and  this  it  is  to  be  feared,  can  scarcely  be  said 
of  any  Egyptian  princess,  however  distinguished  in  her 
time.  Indeed  I  may  go  so  far  as  to  assert  that  some 
plants  are  positively  more  elegant  *as  mummies  than 
they  were  when  the  sap  circulated  in  all  their  vessels. 
There  is  the  common  teazle,  for  example,  which  in 
winter  acquires  a  quite  remarkable  perfection  of  curva- 
ture in  all  its  leaves.  There  is  a  clump  of  them  not 
far  from  the  Val  Ste.  Ve"ronique,  of  which  the  tallest  is 
nearly  eight  feet  high>  and  so  very  perfect  and  delicate 
that  if  some  skilful  goldsmith  were  to  copy  it  as  it  stands 
in  pure  Australian  gold  (silver  would  be  too  chilly  in 
tint)  all  Paris  would  wonder  at  its  loveliness.  Not  a  leaf 
of  it  but  is  fit  to  be  the  model  for  an  archbishop's  crozier, 
and  round  the  head  rise  the  thin  bracts  like  guards,  still 
perfect,  every  one  of  them,  though  the  tall  stem  has 


January  —  The  Great  Mullein.  45 

swayed  in  the  autumn  storms.  As  to  that  head  itself, 
what  a  miracle  of  texture  !  Warm  reddish  brown  in 
the  sun,  and  at  a  short  distance  seeming  soft  as  fur,  but 
nearer  a  delicate  net-work. 

Another  very  fine  plant  in  winter,  happily  very  com- 
mon in  many  places,  is  the  great  mullein,  which,  though 
it  does  not  equal  the  teazle  in  elegance,  far  surpasses 
it  in  the  expression  of  melancholy  ruin.  Still  it  retains 
some  rich,  thick,  pale,  dusty,  cottony  leaves,  between 
the  earth  and  the  blackened  raceme  where  the  pale 
yellow  flowers  once  clustered  so  gaily  in  the  sunshine, 
but  the  large  outer  leaves  have  faded  and  lost  form, 
and  become  mere  brown  rags,  like  the  tatters  of  mis- 
erable poverty,  drenched  by  the  rains  of  winter,  and 
draggled  on  the  mud  of  the  cold  inhospitable  earth. 
Of  all  the  plants  that  grow,  the  mullein  in  its  decay 
comes  nearest  to  that  most  terrible  form  of  human 
poverty  when  the  victim  has  still,  to  his  misfortune, 
vitality  enough  for  mere  existence,  yet  not  enough  to 
make  existence  either  decent  or  endurable.  Groups  >of 
them  will  be  found  together,  still  strong  enough  to  bear 
up  against  the  bitter  wind  that  tears  their  rags  into 
more  pitiable  raggedness,  and  flings  foulness  on  their 
wet  and  withered  leaves,  to  stick  there,  like  contumely, 
till  they  die.  Some  freshness  lingers  yet  within  their 
folds,  like  hidden  and  tender  recollections,  some  soft- 
ness and  a  little  warmth,  but  their  misery  is  like  -  that 
awful  destitution  that  stands  clothed  in  the  last  shreds 
and  remnants  of  prosperity. 

The  ferns  and  grasses  bear  the  season  better,  and 


46  January  —  Grasses. 

retain  almost  every  charm  but  color.  The  forms  of 
fern  are  still  complete,  and  the  plant  still  bears  itself 
with  a  perfect  grace,  except  where  it  has  been  exposed 
to  injury,  and  then  it  will  often  be  broken,  for  it  is  more 
fragile  now  than  in  the  elasticity  of  summer.  There 
are  grasses  which  survive  with  all  their  elegance,  and 
their  delicate  pale  spears  stand  perfect  in  the  air  of 
winter,  bending  at  every  breath,  and  bearing  trembling 
plumes,  yet  recovering  themselves  always.  I  value,  too, 
the  great  old  dead  stalks  of  the  bramble,  all  quite  hoary 
and  gray,  with  nothing  but  thorns  upon  them.  They 
are  often  twelve  or  fifteen  feet  long,  and  trail  about  the 
hedges  much  more  visibly  at  this  season  than  when  hid- 
den under  the  summer  leafage. 

The  blackthorn  is  valuable  for  the  abundance  of  its 
dark  purple  fruit,  as  big  as  common  grapes,  and  covered 
with  a  beautiful  blue-gray  bloom.  The  whole  coloring 
of  this  plant  in  winter  is  strikingly  harmonious,  for  the 
stem  and  twigs  are  of  a  pleasant  purplish  gray,  which 
the  fruit  continues  in  another  variety.  It  is  well  worth 
painting  in  studies  of  still-life  for  its  peculiar  quality  of 
texture.  The  whitethorn  is  less  harmonious,  but  richer, 
with  the  multitudes  of  its  dark  vermilion  berries,  in 
masses  quite  sufficient  to  affect  the  coloring  of  a  foie- 
ground.  Whilst  the  blackthorn  is  entirely  bare  of  leaf- 
age at  this  season,  the  whitethorn  is  not  altogether  bare, 
but  will  often  retain  foliage  rather  abundantly  in  shel- 
tered corners,  and  its  remaining  leaves  are  of  a  very 
warm  brown,  which  sustains  the  berries  well,  and  is  better 
than  the  contrast  of  green.  The  way  in  which  green  will 


January  —  Mistletoe.  4  7 

be  preserved  or  lost  in  winter  is  one  of  the  most  curious 
things  about  the  local  coloring  of  landscape.  For  ex- 
ample, in  the  case  of  rushes,  the  green  remains  vividly 
where  there  is  water,  except  at  the  tops  of  the  blades, 
which  are  tipped  with  yellow ;  but  in  drier  places  the 
whole  rush  is  pale  yellow,  often  giving  most  brilliant 
and  effective  white  lines,  even  when  there  is  no  sun- 
shine to  relieve  them.  Then  you  have  the  peculiai 
green  of  the  mistletoe,  often  existing  in  such  quantities 
as  to  give  at  a  little  distance  quite  a  summer-like 
appearance  to  the  tree  it  has  chosen  to  establish  itself 
upon.  Seen  nearer,  the  green  is  made  perceptibly  less 
powerful  by  the  wax-like  berries,  which,  being  of  a  very 
pale  greenish  white,  neither  intensify  the  green  by  con- 
trast, as  scarlet  would  have  done,  nor  yet  sustain  it  by 
a  continuation  of  its  own  color.  The  mistletoe  is,  to 
my  taste,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  plants  we  have  ;  and 
I  like  its  coloring  exceedingly,  both  because  the  hue  of 
the  leaves  is  not  a  vulgar  green,  and  also  because  the 
fruit  has  the  most  exquisite  delicacy  of  hue,  in  such 
perfect  harmony  with  the  leafage,  that  it  seems  tinted 
by  a  faint  reflection. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  pleasant  green  in  winter,  due 
to  the  delicate  minute  mosses  that  often  cover  the  bark 
of  certain  trees  ;  as  for  instance,  the  quince-tree  and  the 
acacia.  In  some  such  cases  the  bark  seems  positively 
painted,  and  is  quite  bright  in  the  wintry  sunshine.  Such 
moss-painted  trunks  and  branches  are  a  great  resource 
when  there  happens  to  be  holly  in  the  foreground,  which 
is  dangerous  from  its  isolation  and  the  intensity  of  its 


48  January  —  Viburnum. 

green,  derived  from  contrast  with  the  scarlet  berries. 
One  of  the  best  things  about  the  holly  is  the  variety 
given  by  the  lighter  color  of  the  under-side  of  the  leaf, 
but  it  is  not  a  very  safe  plant  for  the  painter,  as  it  offers 
a  peculiar  temptation  to  obtrusiveness  both  of  crude 
color  and  of  what  may  be  called  irritating  detail,  neither 
has  it  any  softness  of  mass  or  grace  of  contour.  For 
any  one  who  enjoys  the  sight  of  red  berries  in  the  most 
jewel-like  splendor  there  is  nothing  in  winter  like  the 
viburnum,  the  species  we  call  viorne  obier  (a  relative 
of  the  guelder-rose  of  gardens)  ;  and  if  you  meet  with  a 
fine  specimen  just  when  it  is  caught  by  the  level  rays 
of  a  crimson  sunset,  you  will  behold  a  shrub  that  seems 
to  have  come  from  that  garden  of  Aladdin  where  the 
fruits  of  the  trees  were  jewels.  The  birds  love  these 
splendid  berries,  and  it  is  said  that  in  Norway  they  are 
served  at  table  for  dessert.  I  have  not  forgotten  the 
mountain-ash,  but  in  January,  although  it  still  has 
berries,  the  most  of  them  are  withered  and  have  lost 
their  beautiful  color ;  however,  they  still  keep  a  rich 
crimson  vermilion  tint.  Nothing  in  the  beginning  of 
the  year  can  be  prettier  than  the  hazel,  with  its  thou- 
sands of  pendulous  catkins,  all  of  a  very  pale  and  tender 
and  lovely  green  in  the  sunlight ;  they  remind  one  of 
filigree,  or  the  work  in  the  fringe  of  epaulettes. 

It  is  a  great  advantage  of  the  winter  season  for  the 
study  of  sylvan  nature  that  it  enables  us  to  see  the 
structure  of  trunks  and  branches  so  much  better  than 
we  ever  can  do  when  they  are  laden  with  summer  foliage. 
Of  all  trees  at  this  season  of  the  year  my  favorite  is 


January —  Walnut.  49 

decidedly  the  walnut.  Its  bark  is  magnificent  in  the 
strength  of  the  deeply-furrowed  lines  which  mark  it 
(tempting  beyond  measure  to  an  etcher),  and  its  fine 
pale  grays  exhibit  to  perfection  that  wealth  of  dark 
mosses  which  the  landscape-painter  knows  and  values. 
Besides  this,  there  is  so  much  grandeur  in  its  far-spread- 
ing, powerful  arms,  that  it  is  well  for  us  to  see  them 
during  part  of  the  year  without  their  voluminous  green 
sleeves.  Happily  for  the  beauty  of  many  a  village 
the  walnut  is  productive  during  life,  so  that  it  is  allowed 
to  come  to  full  maturity.  The  oak  is  inferior  both  in 
form  and  color,  and  expresses  only  a  sturdy  strength. 
The  ash  shows  her  grace  of  structure,  her  tall  and  ele- 
gant limbs,  whilst  her  bunches  of  '  keys'  hang  like  orna- 
ments on  the  lofty  branches  ;  and  there  will  be  a  little 
rich  green  moss,  perhaps,  about  her  foot,  and  on  her 
trunk  one  or  two  different  kinds  of  lichen,  either  gray 
or  golden.  As  for  the  towering  poplar,  there  will  be 
nothing  whatever  on  all  his  height  but  here  and  there 
a  remnant  of  last  year's  leaves,  withered  and  curled, 
whilst  the  branches  whiten  towards  the  summit.  The 
alder  would  be  almost  as  naked  were  it  not  for  the 
quantities  of  brown  catkins,  which  give  a  deep  and 
rather  rich  color  at  a  distance.  All  the  branches  of 
the  horse-chestnut  are  tipped  with  brown  buds,  whose 
abundant  adhesive  varnish  protects  the  tiny  leaf  rudi- 
ments, all  snugly  wrapped  in  cotton.  The  ground 
beneath  is  strewn  with  the  sere  leaves  of  the  preced- 
ing year,  and  the  smooth-rinded  old  mahogany-colored 
fruit. 

1 


50  January  —  Improvements. 


X. 


Improvements  —  Wood-cutting  —  Importance  of  fine  Trees  in  Scenery 
—  Giant  Brethren  —  Spenser's  Conception  of  the  Forest. 

MY  presence  in  the  Val  Ste.  Veronique  had  the  good 
effect  of  saving  some  trees  from  the  woodman's 
axe,  and  by  way  of  compensation  I  gave  myself  the 
pleasure  of  making  an  opening  here  and  there  to  obtain 
glimpses  of  scenery,  where  the  brushwood  was  as  impen- 
etrable as  a  jungle.  Of  all  country  occupations  I  think 
this  is  the  most  interesting,  whilst  planting  is  perhaps 
the  most  satisfactory.  '  It  is  flattering  to  the  vanity  of 
a  creature  so  ephemeral  as  man  to  feel  that  he  is  settling 
the  fate  of  oaks  that  might  live  for  a  thousand  years. 
No  sentiment  can  be  more  foolishly  thrown  away  than 
that  which  would  preserve  all  trees  until  they  were  rot- 
ten :  it  is  best  to  cut  them  in  their  fullest  maturity  before 
decay  begins.  Still  there  are  exceptions  to  this  rule, 
and  the  chief  of  these  are  the  cases  where  a  tree  is  valu- 
able in  life,  either  from  its  position  as  an  ornament  of 
scenery  or  else  from  association  with  past  generations  of 
men.  How  much  of  the  beauty  of  the  scenery  we  love 
best  may  be  dependent  upon  the  magnificence  of  a  few 
trees  which,  once  gone,  a  hundred  years  would  not  re- 
place, we  do  not  adequately  realize  until  accident  or 
avarice  has  removed  them.  All  scenery  that  is  not 


January  —  Giant  Brethren.  5 1 

positively  mountainous  owes  to  sylvan  beauty  nearly  all 
its  charm  and  attraction,  and  even  where  trees  abound 
the  whole  dignity  and  character  of  some  house  or  village 
may  be  dependent  upon  the  immediate  neighborhood 
of  two  or  three  venerable  oaks  or  walnuts.  And  in  the 
heart  of  the  forest,  remote  from  any  human  habitation, 
there  may  be  scenes  of  the  most  striking  grandeur,  which 
would  be  utterly  ravaged  by  the  destruction  of  some 
venerable  company  of  giants  who  have  lived  there  side 
by  side  for  full  five  hundred  years.  There  is  one  such 
solitude  in  a  narrow  dell  about  a  league  from  the  Val 
Ste.  Veronique.  It  is  just  at  the  end  of  a  little  valley, 
where  a  streamlet  glides  down  a  grassy  slope  rounded 
into  the  smoothest  curves.  On  this  slope  stand  twelve 
gigantic  brethren,  chestnuts,  which  by  a  happy  fatality 
have  escaped  the  axes  of  many  successive  generations. 
They  have  no  definite  association  with  human  history ; 
they  have  dwelt  together  in  this  solitude  undisturbed  by 
the  fall  of  dynasties  or  the  noise  of  distant  battle-fields. 
No  king  has  ever  sought  refuge  in  their  foliage,  no  gen- 
eral has  encamped  or  held  council  beneath  their  shade. 
Only  the  birds  have  made  nests  in  their  world  of  leaves, 
and  the  wild  deer  found  repose  in  the  coolness  of  their 
shadowy  seclusion.  No  poet  has  ever  sung  them,  no 
lover  ever  carved  linked  initials  on  their  bark.  And 
yet  the  man  would  be  dead  to  all  sylvan  feeling,  who 
could  go  into  that  valley,  axe  in  hand,  and  look  at  these 
ancient  brethren  with  a  base  calculation  of  their  price. 
Can  we  not  spare  a  narrow  spot  of  ground,  where  ground 
is  worth  so  little,  in  order  that  one  group  of  trees  may 


5  2  January  —  Spenser. 

reach  the  limit  of  their  age,  in  order  that  we  may  see 
both  what  they  are  and  what  they  may  become  ?  Every 
sapling  in  the  forest  gains  dignity  from  their  imposing 
presence,  and  he  who  has  once  beheld  them  in  their 
place  may  read  with  better  understanding  the  verse  of 
those  great  old  poets  who  wrote  when  such  princes  of 
the  forest  might  be  met  with  more  frequently  in  the 
land.  Think  what  was  Spenser's  conception  of  the 
forest,  and  what  in  our  own  time  is  too  often  the  un- 
interesting reality !  He  thought  of  it  as  a  country 
shaded  by  a  great  roof  of  green  foliage,  which  was  car- 
ried on  massive  stems  always  so  far  apart  that  one  or 
several  knights  could  ride  everywhere  without  incon- 
venience ;  but  we  find  the  reality  to  be  for  the  most 
part  an  impenetrable  jungle  of  young  trees,  that  will  be 
cut  down  in  a  year  or  two  for  firewood.  Ah,  let  us  still 
preserve  some  dwelling  of  sylvan  majesty,  where  the 
poet  may  dream  and  the  artist  may  study,  and  both  may 
forget  the  cares  and  interests  of  the  present !  Are  there 
not  still  left  to  us,  here  and  there  in  the  deep  woods,  such 
vales  of  ancient  peace  that  wandering  Una  may  haply 
meet  us  there ;  or  some  splendid  knight  of  fairy-land, 
like  him  whose  glittering  crest  danced  joyously  as  the 
rustling  foliage  of  an  almond-tree, 

'  On  top  of  greene  Selinis  all  alone  ? ' 


February  —  Mild  Winters.  53 


XI. 


Mild  Winters — Arctic  Sleep  of  Nature  —  Beauty -of  Hoar-Fiost  — 
Fairy  Work  of  the  Hoar-Frost  —  One  Day  —  Snow  —  Wild  Boars 
—  The  Weasel  —  He  becomes  my  Gamekeeper  —  A  Snow-storm  — 
Winter  Reading — Cowper's  Description  of  the  Ice-Palace  —  Thom- 
son —  His  Ficelles  —  The  Man  Lost  in  the  Snow. 

OUR  winter  in  the  Val  Ste.  Ve"ronique  had  been 
hitherto  one  of  those  mild  southern  winters 
which  deceive  us  with  promises  of  a  calm  transition 
from  the  glow  of  autumn  to  the  green  of  spring,  as  if 
there  were  nothing  between  the  two  seasons  but  an 
interval  of  grayer  sky  and  briefer  daylight,  without 
any  severity  of  temperature,  or  any  white  enshrouding 
of  the  departed  year.  Rarely,  however,  does  the  course 
of  Nature  in  these  latitudes  entirely  avoid  the  season  of 
arctic  sleep,  and  if  it  is  delayed  till  the  spring  flowers 
are  ready  to  blossom,  it  is  almost  sure  to  come  down 
suddenly  upon  the  earth,  like  a  fit  of  somnolence  on  a 
weary  human  frame.  So  it  happened  that  one  day  near 
the  end  of  February  the  thermometer  went  down  very 
rapidly,  and  every  creature  that  was  susceptible  of  cold 
began  to  feel  the  bracing  of  a  keener  air.  It  was  evi- 
dent that  we  were  to  have  real  winter  after  all,  though 
probably  a  very  brief  one. 

It  came  upon  us  in  a  single  night ;  and  as  men  have 
gone  to  rest  with  hair  all  black  or  brown,  and  the  next 
morning  looked  in  the  glass  and  seen  a  head  white  like 


54          February  —  Beauty  of  Hoar-Frost. 

the  foam  of  the  sea,  so  did  our  forest  darken  in  the  twi- 
light and  whiten  in  next  day's  dawn. 

It  is  certainly  not  my  intention  to  trouble  the  reader 
much  with  mere  changes  of  the  weather,  but  I  mention 
this  because  it  produced  one  of  those  enchantments 
which  belong  to  sylvan  scenery,  and  to  sylvan  scenery 
alone.  The  beauty  of  hoar-frost  is  nothing  by  itself, 
nothing  on  naked  rock  or  mountain,  nothing  in  the 
streets  of  the  city,  and  out  at  sea  it  is  visible  only  on 
the  ship's  cordage,  if  by  accident  it  may  whiten  it  for 
awhile.  But  on  sylvan  landscape  it  settles  like  a  fairy 
decoration.  No  human  work  is  delicate  enough  to  be 
compared  with  such  delicacy  as  this,  no  human  artificer 
in  silver  or  in  ivory  ever  wrought  such  visible  magic  as 
these  millions  of  tiny  spears  that  thrust  out  points  of 
unimaginable  fineness  from  the  lightest  spray's  utmost 
extremity.  The  perfect  beauty  of  this  adornment  is 
visible  only  on  tree-branches,  and  most  visible  on  the 
thinnest  and  lightest ;  on  the  dark  thin  twigs  of  the 
birch,  that  bend  under  the  weight  of  a  robin,  or  on 
the  slender  long  sprays  of  the  bird-cherry  tree,  that  the 
little  birds  love  so  well.  And  it  is  not  every  lover  of 
Nature,  however  keen  his  perception,  however  inveterate 
his  habit  of  observation,  who  has  had  the  good  fortune, 
even  once  in  his  whole  existence,  to  see  ths  hoar-frost 
in  perfection.  It  needs  a  calm  so  perfect  that  a  ship 
with  all  her  sails  would  sleep  motionless  upon  the  sea ; 
it  needs  also  a  low  cloud  upon  the  earth,  whose  watery 
particles,  or  hollow  spheres,  or  whatever  in  their  infinite 
littleness  they  may  be,  may  fall  and  settle  slowly  in  the 


February  —  Snow.  5  5 

stillness  of  the  night,  and  freeze  and  fasten  on  the  tiniest 
point  they  touch.  Not  once  in  a  dozen  winters  does 
this  fairy  building  prosper  to  its  completion  ;  but  when 
the  time  is  come,  and  the  fairies  are  permitted  to  do 
their  work  without  any  disturbance  from  the  great, 
strong  gods  of  the  tempest,  or  the  rays  of  far-darting 
Apollo,  then  a  strange  enchantment  descends  upon  the 
forest,  and  a  fragile  beauty  clothes  it ;  so  fragile  that 
the  alighting  of  a  bird  will  shatter  it,  or  the  wind  from 
his  rapid  wings. 

The  hoar-frost  lasted  for  one  day  in  this  perfect 
beauty,  as  abundant  as  a  considerable  snowfall,  but 
incomparably  more  exquisite,  being  indeed  to  the  opac- 
ity of  common  snow  what  the  lace  of  a  princess  is  to 
the  linen  of  ordinary  life.  During  this  one  day  of 
strange  tranquillity  I  walked  mile  after  mile  in  the 
narrow  woodland  roads,  deeply  enjoying  the  solemnity 
of  their  silence,  and  watching  without  sorrow  the  beau- 
tiful death  of  Nature.  The  next  night  came  a  storm  of 
wind  and  rain  that  washed  out  all  fairy-land  ruthlessly, 
and  after  the  rain  came  snow,  and  when  the  snow  was 
deep  in  the  meadows  down  in  the  valley  the  sky  cleared 
and  the  stars  shone  as  night  deepened  with  that  pecul- 
iar scintillating  splendor  which  belongs  to  a  frosty  night, 
and  a  young  bright  moon  cast  a  broad  shadow  from  the 
wood's  edge  down  a  slope  of  snow  untrodden  by  man 
or  beast. 

Alexis  and  I  were  watching  this  scene  from  a  terrace 
in  the  garden,  when  he  seized  my  arm  suddenly,  and 
pointed  in  silence  to  the  broad  shadow  above  mentioned, 


56  February —  The  Weasel. 

in  which  we  discovered  with  some  difficulty  several 
slowly-moving  objects,  that  seemed  to  be  emerging 
from  the  blackness  of  the  wood.  They  came  out  into 
the  moonlight,  half-a-dozen  of  them,  all  fine  wild  boars, 
and  Alexis  was  just  going  to  fetch  his  rifle  when  a  shot 
was  fired  from  the  wood  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  valley, 
and  the  largest  boar  rolled  over  on  the  snow.  The  others 
were  lost  immediately  in  the  recesses  of  the  forest. 

Soon  a  dark  human  figure  became  visible  as  it 
crossed  the  narrow  open  space  before  us.  We  quitted 
our  post  of  observation,  and  went  towards  the  boa?  as 
quickly  as  the  depth  of  the  snow  would  let  us.  It 
was  a  noble  beast,  weighing  more  than  three  hundred 
pounds  ;  and  the  successful  chasseur,  perceiving  that 
his  exploit  had  not  been  without  witnesses,  made  no 
attempt  to  avoid  us,  but  came  up  with  perfect  assur- 
ance. It  was  our  new  acquaintance,  the  Weasel,  and  he 
saluted  us  with  an  ease  of  manner  like  that  of  some 
considerable  landowner,  who  finds  himself  by  accident 
a  trespasser  on  his  neighbor's  domain.  He  begged  par- 
don for  having  yielded  to  an  irresistible  temptation,  and 
said  that  he  would  ask  of  my  generosity  a  pound  or  two 
of  boar's  flesh  for  himself.  I  had  resolved  before  to 
keep  on  good  terms  with  this  active  and  enterprising 
neighbor,  whose  depredations  it  was  impossible  to  pre- 
vent ;  so,  instead  of  wasting  words  in  ineffectual  anger, 
I  simply  observed  that  he  would  have  done  better  to 
ask  my  permission,  which  would  have  been  freely  given, 
and  added  that  he  might  remove  the  beast  whenever  he 
chose  to  fetch  it. 


February  —  A  Snow-Storm.  57 

He  stayed  at  the  farm  that  night,  and  the  boar  was 
carried  on  a  rough  litter  to  the  house,  where  the  Weasel 
performed  the  office  of  butcher  with  a  degree  of  skill 
which  gave  clear  evidence  that  the  task  was  not  new  to 
his  experience.  The  next  day  I  came  to  a  decision, 
and  offered  to  take  him  into  my  employment  as  a 
gamekeeper ;  which  he  agreed  to  more  readily  than  I 
had  expected,  for  his  independent  existence  must  have 
been  in  many  respects  more  agreeable  to  his  tastes  and 
habits,  and  probably  more  lucrative  also,  though  it  was 
likely  enough  that  he  would  never  entirely  abandon  his 
private  business  as  a  braconnier,  even  after  his  engage- 
ment in  my  service.  I  did  not  regret  this  decision  after- 
wards, for  the  Weasel  was  of  the  greatest  use  to  us  in 
subsequent  sylvan  labors  and  explorations.  He  occu- 
pied a  vacant  cottage  in  the  Val  Ste.  Veronique,  and 
attached  himself  more  particularly  to  the  service  of  mfy 
son.  I  was  glad  that  Alexis,  who  wandered  a  great 
deal  in  the  forest  from  the  beginning,  should  have  such 
a  competent  servant  and  guide. 

Although  winter  had  come  upon  us  late,  the  severity 
of  it  was  enough  to  make  amends  for  its  want  of  punc- 
tuality. A  tremendous  snow-storm  confined  us  to  the 
Val  Ste.  Veronique ;  .all  the  roads  were  impassable,  and 
the  house  was  isolated  from  the  world.  But  what  do 
we  know  of  winter,  what  can  any  one  know  of  it,  in  the 
latitudes  of  the  chestnut  and  the  vine?  Even  where 
the  oak  will  not  grow  freely  the  winters  are  still  sup- 
portable, and  wherever  the  yet  hardier  pine-tree  can 
bear  the  rigors  of  the  long  dark  nights  man  lives 


58  February — Winter  Reading. 

through  the  months  of  gloom,  in  crowded  Lapland 
huts.  The  perfect  winter,  more  horrible  than  any 
dream  of  poetry  except  Dante's  frozen  hell,  is  the 
winter  of  Spitzbergen,  where  indeed  some  timber  may 
be  found,  but  only  driftwood,  washed  by  the  surf  of 
the  Atlantic  on  that  treeless  northern  shore,  or  frag- 
ments of  hapless  vessels  crushed  long  ago  like  nut- 
shells in  the  ice. 

I  suppose  that  every  European  who  has  written  a  y 
thing  about  winter  has  certainly  alluded  to  the  one 
indisputable  benefit  which  that  season  brings  to  us,  in 
inclining  us  to  be  more  studious  of  books.  We  never 
read  so  profitably,  I  think,  as  we  do  by  the  fireside  on 
a  winter's  evening  ;  and  if  in  a  future  state  of  existence 
there  should  be  any  hours  that  we  have  passed  in  this 
world  to  which  we  may  look  back  with  feelings  of 
tenderness  and  regret,  it  would  be  those  fire-side  hours 
in  which  our  minds  have  sought  a  light  that  is  not  the 
sun's  light,  and  which  comes  to  us  through  literature. 

Amongst  other  readings  that  seemed  more  partic- 
ularly adapted  to  the  season,  I  had  selected  passages 
of  English  poets  who  had  described  winter  with  great 
earnestness  of  manner,  though  not  always  with  equal 
felicity  of  style.  It  is  not  easy,  in  the  blank  verse  of 
Cowper,  to  find  a  passage  that  may  be  quoted  without 
the  wish,  to  pass  over  some  line  that  is  either  halting 
or  prosaic,  or  else  that  slips  away  too  suddenly  from 
under  you  ;  but  there  is  one  —  the  description  of  that 
famous  freak  of  the  Empress  Catherine,  the  ice-palace 
on  the  shore  of  the  Neva  —  which  is  firm  and  sound 


February — Cowper.  59 

throughout,  and  very  grand.  The  subject  is  introduced 
by  a  few  weak  and  prosaic  verses,  which  injure  the  effect 
in  the  original,  but  when  the  nobler  lines  are  detached 
from  these  the  ore  is  pure  indeed  :  — 

1  No  forest  fell 

When  thou  wouldst  build  ;  no  quarry  sent  its  stores 
To  enrich  thy  walls :  but  thou  didst  hew  the  floods, 
And  make  thy  marble  of  the  glassy  wave. 
In  such  a  palace  Aristaeus  found 
Gyrene,  when  he  bore  the  plaintive  tale 
Of  his  lost  bees  to  her  maternal  ear  : 
In  such  a  palace  Poetry  might  place 
The  armory  of  Winter ;  where  his  troops, 
The  gloomy  clouds,  find  weapons,  arrowy  sleet, 
Skin-piercing  volley,  blossom-bruising  hail, 
And  snow,  that  often  blinds  the  traveller's  course, 
And  wraps  him  in  an  unexpected  tomb. 
Silently  as  a  dream  the  fabric  rose ; 
No  sound  of  hammer  or  of  saw  was  there. 
Ice  upon  ice,  the  well-adjusted  parts 
Were  soon  conjoined  :  nor  other  cement  asked 
Than  water  interfused  to  make  them  one. 
Lamps  gracefully  disposed,  and  of  all  hues, 
Illumined  every  side  ;  a  watery  light 
Gleamed  through  the  clear  transparency,  that  seemed 
Another  moon  new  risen,  or  meteor  fallen 
From  heaven  to  earth,  of  lambent  flame  serene.* 

Surely  these  lines  have  qualities  which  m\\  survive 
the  vicissitudes  of  taste  ;  but  we  are  so  impeded  in  our 
judgment  of  the  poets  by  the  fashions  of  two  epochs, 
by  their  fashions  and  our  fashions,  that  it  is  almost  im- 
possible for  us  to  arrive  at  an  unprejudiced  appreciation 


60  February —  Thomson. 

of  their  work.  And  I  think  that  no  poets  are  farther 
removed  from  ourselves  than  those  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  There  is  Thomson,  for  instance  ;  how  difficult 
it  is  to  read  him  without  being  arrested  at  every  page 
by  a  too  clear  perception  of  the  minor  tricks  or  ficelles 
of  his  craft !  At  the  time  he  wrote,  these  were  the 
accepted  and  customary  ficelles,  and  probably  attracted 
so  little  attention  in  themselves  that  the  mind  of  the 
reader  was  left  perfectly  free  to  enjoy  the  thoughts 
and  imagery  of  the  poet;  but  to  us  the  work  is  old- 
fashioned,  and  strikes  us  as  we  are  struck  by  whatever 
is  just  old-fashioned  enough  to  be  pass/  de  mode.  And 
yet,  although  his  descriptions  are  not  treated  on  the 
same  principles  as  ours,  although  he  has  not  learned 
the  more  temperate  and  perfect  art  which  has  resulted 
from  a  completer  culture  than  the  culture  of  his  time, 
and  has  not  been  aided  (as  contemporary  work  is  aided) 
by  the  development  of  the  modern  school  in  painting, 
there  is  still  great  force  in  his  most  finished  passages. 
The  episode  of  the  man  lost  in  the  snow  is  one  of  the 
best  of  these :  — 

'  As  thus  the  snows  arise ;  and  foul  and  fierce 
All  Winter  drives  along  the  darkened  air  ; 
In  his  own  loose-revolving  fields,  the  swain 
Disastered  stands :  sees  other  hills  ascend, 
Of  unknown,  joyless  brow ;  and  other  scenes, 
Of  horrid  prospect,  shag  the  trackless  plain ; 
Nor  finds  the  river,  nor  the  forest,  hid 
Beneath*  the  formless  wild  ;  but  wanders  on 
From  hill  to  dale,  still  more  and  more  astray ; 
Impatient  flouncing  through  the  drifted  heaps, 


March  —  Sudden  Change.  6 1 

Stung  with  the  thoughts  of  home ;  the  thoughts  of  home 
Rush  on  his  nerves,  and  call  their  vigor  forth 
In  many  a  vain  attempt. 

****** 
In  vain  for  him  the  officious  wife  prepares 
The  fire  fair-blazing,  and  the  vestment  warm  ; 
In  vain  his  little  children,  peeping  out 
Into  the  mingling  storm,  demand  their  sire 
With  tears  of  artless  innocence.     Alas  ! 
Nor  wife  nor  children,  more  shall  he  behold ; 
Nor  friends,  nor  sacred  home.     On  every  nerve   • 
The  deadly  Winter  seizes ;  shuts  up  sense  ; 
And,  o'er  his  inmost  vitals  creeping  cold, 
Lays  him  along  the  snows,  a  stiffened  corse ! 
Stretched  out  and  bleaching  in  the  northern  blast.' 


XII. 


Sudden  Change  from  Winter  to  Spring  —  Floods  —  Spring  is  come  — 
The  Sweet  Time  —  Thomson  —  Nash  —  Daubigny  —  The  Spring 
Feeling  —  Constable  —  His  Love  of  Spring — Harmony  of  good  Art- 
Work —  Nature  not  harmonious  in  the  Spring  —  Charms  peculiar  to 
Spring — The  Regrets  which  the  Spring  suggests. 

WHEN  the  winter  comes  very  late  in  our  latitude, 
as  it  does  from  time  to  time,  we  pass  to  spring 
quite  suddenly.  The  temperature  rises  in  the  course  of 
a  single  night  as  if  we  had  travelled  far  southwards,  and 
felt  the  breezes  from  the  African  shore  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean. The  snow  and  ice  thaw  rapidly ;  the  little 
streams  become  impassable  torrents  ;  the  rivulets  be- 


6  2  March  —  Floods. 

come  rivers ;  the  rivers  spread  themselves  over  the 
plain,  and  carry  ruin  to  a  thousand  homesteads.  There 
was  something  ominous  in  the  excessive  mildness  of  the 
temperature  when  we  awoke  one  morning  in  March. 
The  snow  lay  deep  upon  the  earth,  but  the  air  was 
warm  and  enervating.  Already  the  tiny  stream  in  the 
Val  Ste.  Veronique  had  increased  in  volume,  and  before 
nightfall  it  roared  angrily,  its  turbid  waters  confined 
between  steep  banks,  carrying  logs  of  wood  that  had 
been  purposely  laid  along  its  sides,  and  other  burdens 
that  had  not  been  so  intentionally  confided  to  its  care. 
Most  of  the  little  wooden  bridges  are  removed  in  a  flood 
of  this  kind,  the  earth  is  washed  away  from  the  roots  of 
the  trees,  and  many  an  alder  falls. 

With  the  thaw  came  a  deluge  of  rain,  and  the  tor- 
rents roared  in  all  the  glens.  We  who  were  at  the  head 
of  the  waters  began  to  expect  evil  tidings  from  the 
plains.  Every  drop  that  now  fell  on  the  soaked  earth 
of  the  forest  must  find  its  way  ultimately  to  the  Loire. 
Fortunately  the  hills  were  richly  clothed  with  wood, 
which  retards  the  departure  of  the  rainfall,  and  converts 
what  would  be  a  sudden  crisis  of  devastation  into  the 
endurable  floods  of  twelve  or  twenty  days.  And  still 
the  waters  descended  rapidly  enough  to  give  ample 
reason  for  anxiety.  We  in  our  hills  were  safe,  and  the 
buildings  in  our  valley  had  been  so  arranged  by  the 
foresight  of  the  monks  who  first  erected  them  as  to  be 
clear  from  any  possible  inundation  ;  but  already  the 
torrent  was  washing  the  stone-faced  embankment  of  the 
garden-terrace,  and  if  the  monks  had  not  built  their 


March —  The  Sweet  Time.  63 

stone  bridge  lower  down,  which  to  strangers  always 
seemed  so  uselessly  wide  in  summer,  our  road  com- 
munication would  have  been  entirely  interrupted.  I 
felt  curious  to  see  the  effects  of  the  flood,  and, 
notwithstanding  the  incessant  rain,  we  quitted  the 
Val  Ste.  Veronique  and  drove  in  the  direction  of  the 
Loire. 

The  morning  after  our  return  to  the  valley  we  rose 
early,  and  breathed  an  air  at  once  so  mild  and  pure 
that  we  knew  the  spring  had  come. 

Spring  is  much  rather  the  season  of  poets  than  of 
painters.  What  delights  us  in  the  spring  is  more  a 
sensation  than  an  appearance,  more  a  hope  than  any 
visible  reality.  There  is  something  in  the  softness  of 
the  air,  in  the  lengthening  of  the  days,  in  the  very 
sounds  and  odors  of  the  sweet  Jime,  that  caresses  and 
consoles  us  after  the  rigorous  weeks  of  winter.  It  is 
natural  that  poets  should  love  the  spring,  which  comes 
to  them  with  a  thousand  flowers,  with  songs  of  birds, 
with  purer,  brighter  light,  and  such  refreshment  that  it 
is  like  a  fountain  of  jouvence.  So  they  hail  the  season 
with  their  most  melodious  invocations,  sometimes  in 
grave  earnestness,  as  if  its  benefits  were  too  great  to  be 
treated  lightly,  and  sometimes  in  frolic  merriment  like 
the  dancing  of  kids  or  lambs.  Thomson  is  grave  and 
stately :  — 

1  Come,  gentle  Spring,  ethereal  mildness,  come, 
And  from  the  bosom  of  yon  dropping  cloud, . 
While  music  wakes  around,  veiled  in  a  shower 
Of  shadowing  roses,  on  our  plains  descend.' 


64  March  —  Nask. 

Nash  greets  the  spring  in  another  tone  and  measure  :  — 

*  Spring,  the  sweet  spring,  is  the  year's  pleasant  king ; 
Then  blooms  each  thing,  then  maids  dance  in  a  ring. 
Cold  doth  not  sting,  the  pretty  birds  do  sing 
Cuckoo,  jug-jug,  pu-we,  to-witta-woo  ! ' 

These  extracts  are  as  dissimilar  as  can  be,  and  yet 
in  both  of  them  we  may  observe  a  characteristic  they 
have  in  common.  It  is  much  more  the  sounds  and 
sensations  of  the  pleasant  time  than  any  thing  that  is  to 
be  seen  which  awaken  the  enthusiasm  of  the  poet.  The 
'  ethereal  mildness '  of  Thomson,  with  the  shower  of 
shadowing  roses  and  the  awakening  music,  strike  his 
imagination  before  any  landscape  distinctly  rises  before 
it.  •  Nash  says  that '  cold  doth  not  sting,'  and  he  imitates 
the  songs  of  the  birds,  which  serve  him  for  a  refrain. 
On  the  other  hand,  I  well  remember  a  large  picture  of 
Spring  by  Daubigny,  which  was  very  disappointing  both 
to  myself  and  others  ;  and  the 'disappointment  was  most 
probably  due  to  the  inevitable  absence  of  those  very 
delights  of  sound  and  sense  which  refresh  us  so  much  in 
Nature,  and  of  which  the  poets  are  so  careful  to  remind 
us.  What  would  spring  be  without  the  spring  feeling 
—  that  quite  peculiar  exhilaration  that  comes  to  us,  we 
know  not  how,  like  far-off  reminiscences  of  youth  ? 

The  only  landscape-painter  who  ever  dedicated  his 
powers  to  this  season  of  the  year  with  a  devotion  all  but 
exclusive  of  every  other  .was  Constable.  He  liked  the 
freshness  of  the  season  as  a  pleasure  for  the  eye,  and  his 
own  eye  longed  for  it  and  loved  it,  because  he  was  in  a 
state  of  intense  antagonism  to  the  brown  doctrine  in 


March  —  Constable.  65 

landscape-painting,  and  the  spring  greens  were  all  on 
his  own  side  of  the  controversy.  In  estimating  the  value 
of  Constable's  opinion  on  this  matter  we  ought  there- 
fore to  remember  that  it  was  not  quite  an  unbiassed 
opinion,  that  his  mind  was  not  at  all  in  a  neutral  or 
judicial  state,  but  that  he  was  like  a  Protestant  theo- 
logian seeking  texts  against  tradition ;  and  that  his 
texts  were  the  young  verdure,  the  shade  and  shower, 
the  cool  and  pearly  light,  and  soft  blue  shadow  beside 
it,  the  sparkle  and  glitter  of  daisy  pied  pastures  in  the 
moisture  of  an  English  April.  Now  whatever  a  good 
artist  paints  is  sure  to  be  harmonious,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  he  makes  it  so ;  and  there  is  no  doubt  that 
any  first-rate  landscape-painter  who  chooses  to  paint  a 
spring  scene  will  get  a  harmony  out  of  it  (as  he  will 
out  of  any  thing  in  the  world),  which  may  be  used  after- 
wards as  a  critical  argument  in  favor  of  the  '  year's 
pleasant  king.'  But  the  plain  truth  is  that  Nature  is 
not  harmonious  at  this  season,  she  is  only  in  the  way  of 
becoming  so.  The  colors  that  she  gives  are  delicious 
separately,  as  we  happen  to  come  upon  them,  and  they 
do  our  eyes  good  after  the  chills  of  winter  ;  the  green 
especially  is  good  for  us,  and  we  welcome  it  with  an  un- 
critical gladness  :  but  when  we  think  of  painting,  it  may 
be  doubted  whether  any  season  of  the  year  is  less  pro- 
pitious than  this  to  the  broad  and  noble  harmonies 
which  are  the  secret  of  all  grand  effects  in  art.  A  patch 
of  green  in  this  place  and  that,  quite  crude  as  yet  and 
utterly  isolated ;  a  constant  contradiction  between  the 
sunshine  and  the  wintry-looking  woods ;  a  few  plants 

S 


66  March  —  Charms  of  Spring. 

precociously  early,  and  nobler  ones  lagging  behind,  —  the 
season  resembles  nothing  so  much  as  that  uncomfort- 
able hour  in  the  daily  life  of  a  household  when  some 
of  its  members,  the  early-risers,  are  already  walking 
about  as  if  they  did  not  quite  know  what  to  do  with 
themselves,  and  others  have  not  yet  come  down  to 
breakfast.  No,  summer  and  not  spring  is  the  landscape- 
painter's  time  of  harmony, — late  summer,  when  the 
peasants  go  to  the  harvest-fields,  and  come  home  with 
songs  in  the  warm-toned,  mellow  moonlight,  and  all  the 
trees  have  had  time  to  assume  the  fulness  of  their 
foliage. 

Yet  spring  has  its  own  charms,  especially  for  young 
people,  who  have  it  within  their  breasts.  I  think  per- 
haps, as  we  get  older,  and  are  saddened  by  the  gloomier 
experiences  of  life,  that  the  recurrence  of  the  earliest 
leaves  and  flowers  does  not  always  increase  our  cheerful- 
ness very  much.  We  know  too  well  the  limits  of  a  year, 
how  short  a  space  it  is,  how  little  that  will  be  satis- 
factory afterwards  can  be  done  in  it  whilst  it  lasts.  We 
think  of  the  other  springs  that  now  lie  far  behind  us, 
and  how  we  lost  them  in  vain  pleasures,  or  profitless 
labor  that  seems  to  us  still  more  vain.  Will  this  year 
be  better  used  ?  Already  it  is  slipping  away  from 
under  us,  and  pray  what  have  we  done  ?  Made  plans, 
perhaps,  to  be  afterwards  modified,  and,  it  may  be, 
finally  abandoned,  to  join  all  those  other  ghostly 
schemes  and  projects  so  various  in  conception,  so  mo- 
notonous in  the  negative  result.  It  is  only,  I  imagine, 
the  simply  and  intensely  practical  who  are  never 


March  — Awakening  of  Townspeople  to  Spring.  67 

assailed  by  any  such  regrets  as  these  ;  to  them  the 
business  of  living  seems  a  very  plain,  straightforward 
business,  and  they  follow  their  own  lines,  as  loco- 
motives do,  with  the  least  possible  friction  or  loss. 


XIII. 

Sudden  Awakening  of  Townspeople  to  the  Spring — My  Experience  of 
this  —  Wonderful  Effect  of  a  sudden  Transition  —  Horses  —  The 
Thirst  for  Summer  —  Case  of  a  sick  Boy  —  Slow  brightening  of  the 
new  Season  —  Water  Ranunculus  —  Effect  of  it  on  a  Horse  —  The 
Low  Country  —  Purple  Willow  —  Sallow  Willow  —  Osier  —  Round- 
eared  Willow  —  Male  Tree  —  Female  Tree  —Variety  of  Spring  Land- 
scape —  Evanescence  in  Landscape. 

IN  the  life  of  men  who  work  in  great  centres  of  popu- 
lation, and  see  nothing  of  the  sylvan  world  except 
what  may  happen  to  have  been  planted  in  a  plot  of 
ground  which  they  dignify  with  the  name  of  a  garden  — 
a  few  gardeners'  plants  so  altered  from  the  Divine  ideal 
as  to  be  unrecognizable,  and  so  arranged  as  to  be 
entirely  without  that  charm  of  unexpected  surprises 
(  which  is  the  great  source  of  interest  in  Nature  ---  there 
will  often  occur  a  sudden  awakening,  about  the  begin- 
ning of  June,  to  the  fact  that  the  world  has  somehow 
painted  itself  green  again,  with  touches  of  white,  and 
crimson,  and  blue.  In  such  lives  as  these  the  spring 
is  often  simply  omitted,  unless  from  time  to  time  some 
breath  of  vernal  mildness  may  reach  them  across  the 
barrenness  of  the  brick  wilderness  they  live  in.  It  hap- 
pened to  me  once  to  be  confined  by  urgent  business 


68     March  —  Effect  of  a  Sudden  Transition. 

during  the  spring  season  in  the  heart  of  a  great  English 
city,  in  which  there  were  no  green  boulevards  or  avenues, 
and  whose  only  refreshment  in  that  kind  was  a  park  that 
had  been  recently  purchased  by  the  common  council,  far 
outside  in  the  suburbs.  After  many  delays  my  business 
came  to  an  end,  and  I  fled  at  once  to  a  little  corner  in 
the  country  that  was  frequented  only  by  artists  and 
anglers  —  a  clean  little  inn  by  a  river  well  shaded  by 
ancient  trees.  We  had  got  to  the  middle  of  June  and  I 
had  not  seen  a  leaf  or  a  flower  ;  or  if  my  eyes  had  seen 
one,  the  mind  had  not  perceived  it  in  the  midst  of 
wearing  anxieties.  When,  therefore,  this  sudden  leisure 
came  upon  me,  in  the  glorious  birth  of  summer,  I  felt 
the  transition  like  the  change  from  Purgatory  to  Para- 
dise. No  summer  ever  seemed  to  me  so  wonderful  as 
that  did.  Every  leaf  was  a  marvel,  every  flower  was 
a  delight ;  I  lay  down  in  depths  of  dewy  grass,  and 
watched  the  pure  sunshine  streaming  through  the  per- 
fect young  leaves  till  they  softened  it  to  a  quiet  green 
light  all  around  me,  that  seemed  at  once  to  strengthen 
my  jaded  eyes  and  soothe  them.  Three  days  after- 
wards the  marvel  had  passed  away,  but  the  recollection 
of  it  has  ever  since  remained  with  me,  and  explains  for 
me  the  delight  of  the  citizen  in  green  leaves,  and  the 
intensity  of  sensation  about  Nature  whrch  we  find  in 
poets  who  were  bred  in  towns  ;  whilst  those  who  have 
lived  much  in  the  country,  though  they  know  and 
observe  more,  seem  to  feel  more  equably,  and  to  go  to 
Nature  with  less  of  sensuous  thirst  and  excitement. 
Exactly  the  same  difference  may  be  observed  between 


March  —  Horses.  69 

horses  which  have  daily  access  to  the  pasture,  and  those 
which,  after  being  kept  in  stables  during  a  prolonged 
town  season,  are  sent  to  grass  in  summer.  The  former 
will  conduct  themselves  reasonably  when  the  released 
prisoners  of  the  town-stable  will  indulge  in  the  most  ex- 
travagant demonstrations.  There  is  in  men  and  animals 
a  natural  thirst  for  summer  that  begins  to  agitate  them 
about  the  month  of  March,  and  if  they  live  in  rural 
freedom  the  advance  of  spring  very  gradually  satisfies 
this  craving,  like  slow-dropping  rain  on  a  parched  land  ; 
but  if  they  pass  into  summer  suddenly,  and  omit  the 
spring  from  their  experience,  then  the  change  is  like  the 
arrival  of  thirsty  camels  on  the  bank  of  the  abounding 
Nile.  Yet,  although  there  is  a  deep  delight  in  thus 
bathing  ourselves  in  the  full  rich  green  of  summer,  when 
we  have  longed  for  it  many  a  day,  I  like  better  the  slow 
increase  of  satisfaction  that  the  spring-time  hourly  brings 
to  us,  however  parsimoniously,  and  I  would  not  in  ex- 
change for  months  of  what  is  commonly  reputed  to  be 
pleasure,  miss  the  sight  of  the  first  leaves  on  the  willow 
and  the  scent  of  the  violets  where  they  grow. 

I  remember  a  boy  who  for  many  months,  even  for 
years,  suffered  agonies  from  a  disease  which  was  per- 
haps even  the  more  terrible  that  there  was  no  hope  of 
release  by  death  ;  and  one  day,  after  he  had  been  in  bed 
so  long  and  had  suffered  so  much  that  he  had  lost  his 
reckoning  of  time,  his  mother  brought  him  a  great  full- 
blown rose  that  filled  all  the  chamber  with  its  fragrance. 
The  lad  took  the  flower  very  eagerly,  and,  after  almost 
burying  his  face  in  the  soft  and  perfumed  petals,  turned 


70  March —  Water-Ranunculus. 

wonderingly  to  the  giver  and  said,  '  Is  it  summer  now, 
dear  mother?'  He,  poor  fellow,  had  missed  his  spring 
altogether,  and  missed  it  doubly ;  for  the  spring  of  his 
life  was  passed  on  a  couch  of  suffering,  amidst  odors 
of  medicines,  visits  of  grave-faced  doctors,  and  a  weari- 
ness almost  without  hope. 

Happier  in  this,  at  least,  at  the  Val  Ste.  Veronique 
we  were  out  every  day  from  the  very  beginning  of  the 
new  season,  and  watched  the  slow  brightening  of  it  like 
a  dawn.  Where,  in  early  March,  will  you  find  a  plant 
already  in  the  fullest  pride  of  all  its  greenery,  not  yet  in 
flower  it  is  true,  but  in  leaf  abundantly  ?  The  water 
precedes  the  land  in  the  contest  for  spring  primers,  and 
our  finest  streams  are  full  of  the  water-ranunculus, 
waving  in  the  shallows  like  long  green  hair,  —  the  richest 
of  all  greens,  certainly,  though  it  might  be  treason  to 
some  paler  and  fairer  land  plants  to  affirm  that  it  is  also 
the  loveliest.  The  water  at  this  time  is  quite  clear  and 
abundant,  and  very  swift  in  those  depths  of  two  or  three 
feet  where  the  ranunculus  is  happiest ;  so  that  all  the 
fine  linear  segments  of  its  subaqueous  leaves,  the  only 
ones  yet  developed,  are  washed  by  millions  of  gallons  of 
pure  water  every  day  of  their  lives,  and  kept  so  exqui- 
sitely clean  that  no  fragment  of  earth  can  ever  adhere 
to  them  for  an  instant.  It  is  very  different  later  in  the 
year,  as  we  shall  see  when  the  time  comes,  but  the  plant 
is  never  so  lovely  as  it  is  now,  even  when  its  flowers  are 
all  out  in  the  sunshine  and  it  has  two  sorts  of  leaves  to 
boast  of.  I  thought  sometimes  as  I  watched  it  waving 
so  unweariedly  with  the  motion  that  the  current  gave  it, 


March —  The  Low  Country.  .71 

and  flashing  dark  emerald  from  one  end  to  the  other 
like  the  scales  of  some  swiftly-gliding  serpent,  that  it 
seemed  to  have  more  than  simply  vegetable  life,  and  to 
be  a  water-spirit  tied  fast  in  the  stream's  path  and  seek- 
ing relief  in  ineffectual  struggles.  Strangely  enough,  one 
of  my  horses  came  exactly  to  the  same  conclusion  ;  for 
as  I  was  riding  him  across  the  river  at  a  ford  down  in  the 
plain,  where  the  stream  had  a  certain  width  and  a  depth 
of  two  feet  or  thereabouts,  he  saw  the  green  ranunculus 
waving  in  the  clear  current,  and,  being  at  once  per- 
suaded that  it  was  some  living  creature  likely  to  do  him 
bodily  harm,  became  frantic  with  fright,  and  bolted  with 
me  down  the  stream's  bed  till  he  got  into  a  deep  pool, 
where  the  necessity  for  swimming  brought  him  to  his 
senses  again.  I  do  not  know  whether  artists  have  ever 
cared  much  for  this  plant,  but  it  adds  infinitely  to  the 
beauty  of  some  rivers  at  this  early  time  of  the  year,  the 
effect  of  the  waving  various  green  through  the  lightly- 
rippling  transparent  water  being  a  beautiful  variety  in 
the  otherwise  rather  monotonous  topaz  of  river-sands. 

Alexis  and  I  quitted  our  retreat  amongst  the  hills 
for  an  excursion  in  the  low  country  to  see  the  opening 
of  the  spring  season,  which  occurs  about  a  fortnight 
earlier  there.  The  plain  was  rich  in  trees  and  fore- 
ground plants  that  were  not  so  common  in  our  forests, 
and  the  most  conspicuous  of  these,  at  this  time  of  the 
year,  were  the  willows.  During  a  walk  of  a  few  miles 
we  found  half-a-dozen  varieties,  the  most  frequent  and 
most  effective  near  the  rivers  being  the  purple  willow, 
whose  thin  red  stems,  all  speckled  with  young  shoots  of 


72  March — The  Willow. 

pale  green,  were  brilliant  in  the  first  spring  sunshine. 
Then  there  was  the  sallow-willow,  with  its  soft  white, 
downy  blossoms,  and  the  brilliant  silver  of  the  osier 
changing  so  beautifully,  according  to  the  direction  in 
which  you  look  at  it ;  for  if  you  look  in  the  direction 
of  the  down  it  is  silvery,  but  if  against  it,  then  you  see 
a  delicate  gray  purple.  This  purple  reddens  later  as 
the  anthers  become  visible,  and  finally  turns  to  a 
golden  yellow  with  pollen,  but  the  yellow  is  beautifully 
moderated  by  being  always  on  a  gray  ground.  Hardly 
any  thing  in  Nature  is  more  lovely  than  the  round-eared 
willow  in  full  blossom,  especially  the  glory  of  the  male 
tree,  with  the  mingled  greenish  gold  on  its  flowers, 
where  the  anthers  make  a  sort  of  light  golden  filigree 
on  a  ground  of  tender  green.  The  female  tree  is  much 
less  splendid,  but  her  pale  flowers  are  pleasant  as  young 
foliage  is,  with  their  soft  grayish  verdure  on  which  lies 
no  dust  of  gold.  A  little  later  in  the  season  the  com- 
mon white  willow  is  sufficiently  leaved  to  show  a  delicate 
green  bloom  in  the  distance  when  caught  by  the  sun,  but 
when  the  sun  is  clouded  the  bloom  seems  to  disappear, 
and  in  certain  positions  relatively  to  the  light  the  green 
will  be  scarcely,  if  at  all,  visible.  This  adds  much  to 
the  liveliness  and  variety  of  the  spring  landscape,  as  the 
color  comes  and  goes  under  the  sunshine  and  cloud, 
adding  greatly  to  our  sense  of  motion  and  change  in 
Nature, — a  sense  that  some  artists  have  had  in  great 
strength,  and  even  expressed  verbally,  which  is  rare 
with  them.  There  is  nothing  prettier  in  the  natural 
landscape  than  the  appearance,  and  vanishing,  and 


March  —  Barbaras  Song.  73 

sudden  reappearance  of  the  fresh  young  green  on  wil- 
lows, at  a  distance,  as  the  light  touches  or  abandons 
them.  We  have  something  of  the  -same  kind,  but  more 
sublime,  in  the  evanescence  and  reappearance  of  crags 
or  knolls  on  the  sides  of  all  noble  mountains,  whose 
structure  can  never  be  quite  accurately  ascertained 
unless  you  can  make  models  of  them  by  tedious  sur- 
veys, and  which  cheat  us  and  amuse  us  by  endless  alter- 
ations and  disguises. 


XIV. 

The  Willow  —  Associated  with  Unhappiness  —  Desdemona  —  Barbara's 
Song  — Ophelia  — The  Willow  cheerful  in  Itself  —  Cheerful  use  of 
Willow  — In  Tennyson  —  In  Virgil  —  Melody  of  the  English  Name 
—  The  Latin  Name  —  The  Italian  Name  —  The  French  Name  —  In 
Lamartine. 

I  WONDER  how  it  is  that  so  cheerful-looking  a  tree 
as  the  willow  should  ever  have  become  associated 
with  ideas  of  sadness.  Yet  the  association  was  estab- 
lished by  the  great  poets  long  ago,  and  must  have  been 
found  by  them  already  in  the  popular  mind.  It  is  es- 
pecially connected  with  unhappiness  in  love,  and  unhap- 
piness  on  the  side  of  the  woman  when  neglected  and 
forsaken.  So  Desdemona  says, — 

1  My  mother  had  a  maid  called  Barbara : 
She  was  in  love ;  and  he  she  loved  proved  mad, 
And  did  forsake  her  :  she  had  a  song  of  "  willow ; " 
An  old  thing  'twas,  but  it  expressed  her  fortune, 
And  she  died  singing  it.' 


74  March  —  Ophelia. 

Then  Desdemona  sings  Barbara's  song,  with  the  refrain, — 

'  Sing  willow,  willow,  willow  ; 
Sing  all  a  green  willow  must  be  my  garland? 

And  in  '  Hamlet,'  when  Shakspeare  wishes  to  give 
a  poetical  melancholy  to  the  brook  where  Ophelia  was 
drowned,  he  introduces  a  willow  in  the  very  beginning 
of  the  Queen's  description,  so  that  the  word  occurs  in  the 
first  verse,  and  is  the  first  substantive  in  the  verse :  — 

*  There  is  a  willow  grows  aslant  a  brook, 
That  shows  his  hoar  leaves  in  the  glassy  stream  ; 
There  with  fantastic  garlands  did  she  come 
Of  crow-flowers,  nettles,  daisies,  and  long  purples, 
That  liberal  shepherds  give  a  grosser  name, 
But  our  cold  maids  do  dead  men's  fingers  call  them : 
There,  on  the  pendant  boughs  her  coronet  weeds 
Clambering  to  hang,  an  envious  sliver  broke ; 
When  down  her  weedy  trophies,  and  herself, 
Fell  in  the  weeping  brook.' 

This  association  seems  the  more  curious  that  the  wil- 
low is  one  of  the  lightest,  liveliest,  and  most  cheerful- 
looking  of  all  the  trees  that  grow.  There  is  nothing 
funereal  about  its  leaves  either  in  form  or  color,  and  they 
play  in  the  wind  like  butterflies.  See  how  well  the  tree 
comes  in  when  Tennyson  uses  it  in  the  pleasant  allegro 
overture  to  the  '  Lady  of  Shalott ' :  — 

1  Willows  whiten,  aspens  quiver, 
Little  breezes  dusk  and  shiver, 
Through  the  wave  that  runs  for  ever 
By  the  island  in  the  river 

Flowing  down  to  Camelot.' 

And  how  sweetly  and  cheerfully  the  willow  occurs  to 


March —  Cheerful  Use  of  the  Willow.       75 

Virgil's  mind  in  connection  with  a  passage  of  pure  con- 
gratulation, as  a  tree  whose  flowers  would  be  haunted  by 
the  bees  of  Hybla :  — 

'  Fortunate  senex  !  hie,  inter  flumina  nota 
Et  fontes  sacros,  frigus  captabis  opacum ! 
Hinc,  tibi,  quae  semper  vicino  ab  limite  sepes 
Hyblaeis  apibus  florem  depasta  salicti 
Saepe  levi  somnum  suadebit  inire  susurro.' 

But  what  an  advantage  the  English  poets  have  over 
all  others  in  the  melody  of  that  sweet  word  '  willow ' ! 
How  beautifully  it  takes  its  place  in  verse,  —  so  beauti- 
fully that  the  mere  repetition  of  it  is  music  in  itself. 
'  Sing  willow,  willow,  willow/ 

Virgil  was  not  nearly  so  fortunate  as  Shakspeare 
in  this  respect,  for  salictum  is  a  word  which  can  never 
have  any  beauty  of  sound,  though  it  may  be  made,  of 
course,  to  fit  neatly  into  a  Latin  hexameter ;  neither  is 
salix  any  better  for  euphony.  And  even  the  great  soft- 
ening process  which  Latin  underwent  before  it  was 
moulded  into  other  languages  has  not  very  much  im- 
proved the  word  for  poetry.  Sake  and  salcw  are  both 
harsh  ;  and  saule,  though  softer,  is  far  inferior  to  willow 
for  syllabic  melody.  Here  it  is,  for  example  :  the  word 
occurs  in  some  fine  lines  of  Lamartine,  but  the  adjective 
which  follows  it  is  immeasurably  more  important  in  the 
structure  of  the  verse :  — 

4  La,  centre  la  fureur  de  1'aquilon  rapide 
Le  saule  caverneux  nous  pretait  son  tronc  vide, 
Et  j'e"coutais  siffler  dans  son  feuillage  mort 
Des  brises  dont  mon  ame  a  retenu  1'accord.' 


76          March  —  Changes  in  Foregrounds. 


XV. 


Perceptible  Changes  in  Foregrounds  —  Honeysuckle  —  Yellow  Iris  — 
Furze  —  Soap-wort — Arum  —  The  Names  of  the  Periwinkle  in  dif- 
ferent Languages  —  The  unfortunate  English  name,  Periwinkle  — 
Brilliant  Contrasts  in  early  Spring  —  Viburnum  —  Spindle-tree  — 
Precedence  of  Leaf  or  Flower  —  Hawthorn  and  Blackthorn  —  Oak. 

\  LTHOUGH  there  is  nothing  at  this  early  season 
-L~V  which  shows  from  a  distance  like  the  willow, 
whose  silvery  catkins  and  tiny  nascent  leafage  have 
really  an  importance  even  in  the  general  landscape, 
still  the  foreground  is  beginning  to  decorate  itself  with 
leaves  that  count  for  something,  even  before  they  are 
fully  grown  or  accompanied  by  their  sweet  sisters, — 
the  flowers.  The  very  tardiness  of  some  plants  gives 
greater  consequence  to  those  which  precede  them  by  a 
few  weeks  ;  for  instance,  the  honeysuckle  is  a  more  im- 
portant hedgeplant  in  March  than  it  is  two  months  later ; 
for  when  the  hedges  are  bare  of  every  thing  but  a  few 
incipient  buds  of  thorn,  or  wide-apart  scattered  little 
leaves  of  eglantine,  it  is  a  great  thing  to  find  the  soft, 
rather  dark-green  leaves  of  honeysuckle  quite  rich  and 
abundant,  so  much  more  abundant  as  it  seems  to  us 
than  even  in  the  height  of  summer,  when  they  are  lost 
in  the  general  profusion,  and  only  the  flowers  attract 
us  by  their  color  or  their  perfume.  So  by  the  edges 
of  streams,  although  the  yellow  iris  is  a  fine  attractive 
plant  at  all  times  when  it  is  visible,  and  most  especi- 


March  —  Yellow  Iris.  7  7 

ally  so  when  it  displays  its  regal  flowers,  still  one 
welcomes  it  in  March  with  a  new  sense  of  its  value 
when  the  young  pale-green  blades  stand  straight  out 
of  the  water,  their  points  about  six  inches  above  the 
surface.  There  is,  in  truth,  plenty  to  be  seen  in  the 
young  vegetation  of  the  foreground,  and  there  are  more 
leaves  everywhere  than  we  think ;  but  most  of  them 
are  so  small  yet  that  they  escape  attention  individually, 
and  only  please  the  eye  in  the  mass  by  a  general  sense 
of  reviving  greenness.  So  it  is  with  the  tiny  green  leaves 
of  furze,  an  innumerable  multitude,  which  as  yet,  how- 
ever, seem  less  numerous  than  its  thorns.  And  there 
are  plants  which  will  be  of  great  size  and  splendor  in 
their  maturity,  and  which  have  already  quite  a  mature 
look  on  a  much  smaller  scale,  so  that  any  one  who  did 
not  know  them  would  think  they  were  satisfactory 
enough  already.  The  young  soapwort  is  an  example 
of  this  ;  few  young  plants  are  better  worth  drawing, 
for  the  leaves  take  curves  almost  as  good  as  those  of 
fine  naturally-dried  leafage,  and  there  is  an  interesting 
transition  of  color  from  the  fresh  green  of  the  well- 
formed  leaves  down  to  purple  near  the  root.  Other 
plants,  which  will  never  reach  any  great  height  or  size, 
are  of  consequence,  because  their  leaves,  though  few  in 
number,  and  close  to  the  ground,  happen  to  be  rela- 
tively of  rather  large  dimensions  ;  such  a  plant  is  the 
arum,  which  is  often  visible  now  in  damp  nooks  with 
more  than  a  mere  promise  of  verdure  yet  to  come. 

I    have   said   something    about    the    beauty   of    the 
English  word  Willow.     Other  plants  are  less  happy  in 


78  March  —  The  Periwinkle. 

their  English  names,  and  more  fortunate  in  the  names 
that  have  been  given  them  by  other  nations.  For  ex- 
ample, there  is  that  charming  little  spring  flower  which 
is  called  in  Latin  the  Vinca,  or  Pervinca,  because  it  is 
supposed  to  conquer  (vincere,  pervincere)  either  the 
frosts  of  winter  or  some  malady,  whichever  it  may  be, 
for  etymologists  suggest  both  explanations.  And  now 
for  the  changes  that  we  have  made  in  the  Latin  name. 
The  Italians,  to  begin  with,  have  been  in  this  instance 
singularly  conservative,  and  they  call  the  flower  pervinca 
still ;  but  the  French  have  softened  the  word,  and  made 
it  more  beautiful  by  changing  it  into  pervenche.  How 
sweetly  it  occurs  in  the  following  verses,  addressed  by 
a  poet  to  a  young  lady  who  had  captivated  his  admira- 
tion !  — 

*  Je  voudrais  6tre  la  pervenche, 
Qui  joue  avec  tes  noirs  cheveux, 
Ou  ton  beau  miroir  qui  se  penche, 
Quand  sur  lui  tu  mires  tes  yeux.' 

The  English,  on  their  part,  have  also  deviated  from 
the  Latin,  but  not,  I  think,  with  so  happy  a  result.  They 
have  changed  pervinca  into  periwinkle,  and  I  submit  that 
it  is  simply  impossible  to  write  about  this  flower  in  sen- 
tences worthy  of  its  charm  and  beauty  when  you  have 
to  introduce  such  a  barbarous  word  as  that.*  A  poetical 
lover  might  wish  to  be  a  violet  or  a  rose,  but  he  would 
never,  in  written  verse,  have  the  temerity  to  wish  he  was 
a  periwinkle. 

*  I  suppose  the  change  must  have  come  gradually,  and  through  the 
f orm  pervinke,  which  Chaucer  uses. 


March  —  Spindle-  Tree.  7  9 

Early  spring  is  not  the  season  of  the  most  brilliant 
contrasts  ;  but  they  occur  occasionally,  and  may  be 
briefly  alluded  to  in  passing.  You  have  the  viburnum, 
for  instance,  which  in  the  late  winter  is  so  splendid  in 
its  innumerable  berries,  with  their  jewel-like  transparent 
red.  In  early  spring  a  good  many  of  these  berries  remain, 
and  though  their  splendor  is  rather  dimmed  and  faded 
by  this  time  in  reality,  it  seems  to  be  revived  by  the 
effect  of  contrast,  for  the  fresh  green  leaves  have  sprouted 
amongst  them.  Another  little  tree,  whose  foliage  sprouts 
about  the  same  time,  is  the  spindle-tree,  orfusain,  which 
one  can  never  see  without  thinking  of  its  two  very  oppo- 
site uses.  The  charcoal  from  it  is,  it  appears,  especially 
approved  for  the  manufacture  of  the  powder  used  in  can- 
nons, whilst  at  the  same  time  artists  prefer  it  for  char- 
coal-drawing. Both  these  two  things  —  cannon  powder 
and  charcoal-drawing  —  have  been  immensely  improved 
of  late  years  ;  so  war  and  art,  barbarism  and  civilization, 
go  on  together  yet  as  they  did  in  old  Greece,  in  old 
Rome,  in  the  Europe  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  in  the 
time  of  the  great  Renaissance. 

The  mere  precedence  of  flower  before  leaf,  or  leaf 
before  flower,  is  in  itself  quite  sufficient  to  insure  variety 
in  the  early  aspects  of  vegetation.  It  is  illustrated  by 
many  plants  which  might  be  paired  together  in  this  con- 
nection as  examples  ;  but  it  is  enough  to  mention  two  of 
the  commonest  and  best  known,  the  hawthorn  and  the 
blackthorn.  The  leaves  of  the  hawthorn  will  be  all 
sprouting  over  it  abundantly  and  rapidly  covering  the 
hedge  with  their  fresh  light-green,  probably  rather  in- 


8o  March  —  A  Larch-Wood. 

tensified  by  the  contrast  of  a  few  old  haws  that  may 
linger  yet  from  winter  ;  whilst,  at  the  same  time,  the 
blackthorn  will  just  begin  to  be  abundantly  dotted  with 
little  white  buds  which,  here  and  there,  are  bursting  into 
flower,  the  leaf-buds  meanwhile,  though  contemporane- 
ous, being  of  no  visible  importance,  mere  points  compared 
with  the  flower-buds.  If  the  blackthorn  were  often  an 
isolated  plant  it  would  scarcely,  in  early  spring,  be  a 
cheerful-looking  one,  notwithstanding  its  abundant  efflo- 
rescence, for  the  eye  desires  a  little  green  amidst  so  much 
white  and  black  ;  but,  as  it  very  frequently  happens  that 
the  hawthorn  is  not  far  off,  this  defect  is  fully  compen- 
sated by  the  green  and  leafy  neighbor.  Besides  this, 
in  our  scenery  at  least,  you  are  never  very  far  from  an 
oak,  and  last  year's  leaves  still  remain  very  abundantly, 
offering  another  contrast  which  is  not,  I  think,  always 
quite  harmonious  or  agreeable,  but  which,  at  any  rate, 
is  a  variety. 

XVI. 

A  Larch-Wood  —  Rosy  Plumelets  —  Horse-Chestnut  —  Quince  Tree  — 
Ash — Walnut  —  Oak  —  Keys  of  Ash  — Acacia  —  Elder  —  Privet  — 
Bird-cherry  —  Wild  Gooseberry  —  Daffodil  —  Wordsworth's  Poem  on 
the  Daffodil  — Herrick's  Poems  on  Daffodils  — The  Poet's  Narcissus 
—  The  Legend  of  Narcissus  —  /ca^a  vdpnioaoc  —Keats  —  His  Poem  on 
Narcissus. 


B 


Y  far  the  most  charming  sight  in  the  early  spring 
is  however,  to  my  taste,  a  larch-wood.  There  is 
such  a  delightful  mystery  in  it,  just  when  the  leaves  begin 
to  sprout  —  a  pervading  green-gray  bloom,  from  the  gray 


March  —  Horse-  Chestnut.  8 1 

of  the  branches  and  trunks,  and  the  delicate  green  of  the 
young  leaves.  Still  more  beautiful  is  it  rather  later, 
when  the  rosy  catkins  come  into  being,  as  Tennyson 
says,— 

1  When  rosy  plumelets  tuft  the  larch, 
And  rarely  pipes  the  mounted  thrush  ; 
Or  underneath  the  barren  bush 
Flits  by  the  sea-blue  bird  of  March/ 

About  this  time,  too,  the  leaves  of  the  horse-chestnut 
have  pushed  vigorously  through  their  varnished  scales, 
and  are  now  visible  all  wrapped  together  in  a  great 
ogive  bud,  in  softest  cotton  down.  The  quince-trees, 
always  interesting  in  one  way  or  another,  are  especially 
pretty  at  this  time,  for  downy  little  pale  leaves  are  com- 
ing all  over  the  tree  in  little  clusters,  each  cluster  almost 
like  a  flower,  the  effect  at  a  short  distance  being  that 
of  a  scattering  of  light-green  points,  as  if  a  swarm  of 
small  green  butterflies  had  alighted  on  the  tree.  The 
ash  and  walnut,  like  the  oak,  show  no  change  as  yet 
at  a  distance,  although  the  work  of  a  new  creation  is 
elaborating  itself  within  their  closed  buds ;  but  the 
*  keys '  of  the  ash  catch  the  sunshine  strongly,  and  are 
important  and  elegant  from  their  vertical  hanging  — 
a  quality  which  never  fails  to  add  a  certain  grace  to 
trees  whenever  it  occurs  ;  as,  for  example,  in  the  flowers 
of  the  acacia  and  many  others  not  so  beautiful  or  con- 
spicuous. The  elder,  privet,  and  bird-cherry  tree  all 
advance  simultaneously,  and  amongst  the  shrubs  the 
wild  gooseberry  is  in  great  haste  to  clothe  itself  with 
fresh  green.  This  unpretending  little  shrub  has  been 

6 


8  2  March  —  Daffodils. 

strangely  unfortunate  in  being  scientifically  misnamed 
ribes  —  a  name  which  the  Arabs  gave  to  an  acid  rhu- 
barb, and  a  Frenchman  by  mistake  applied  to  the  wild 
gooseberry.* 

But  of  all  the  plants  that  flourish  at  this  season  of 
the  year  not  one  is  equal  to  the  daffodil  in  its  splen- 
dor of  golden  yellow  on  pale,  dusty  basis  of  long  green 
leaves.  The  causes  of  the  singular  and  almost  blinding 
intensity  of  the  color  are  a  gradation  from  semi-trans- 
parent outward  petals,  which  are  positively  greenish  in 
themselves,  and  still  more  so  by  transparence  owing  to 
green  leaves  around,  to  the  depth  of  yellow  in  the  womb 
of  the  flowers,  where  green  influences  are  excluded,  but 
yellow  ones  multiplied  by  the  number  of  the  petals.  So 
in  the  heart  the  color  is  an  intense  orange  cadmium, 
not  dark,  but  most  intense  —  a  color  that  we  remember 
all  the  year  round.  Wordsworth  found  that  this  floral 
splendor  haunted  him, — 

'  I  gazed  —  and  gazed  —  but  little  thought 

What  wealth  the  show  to  me  had  brought. 

For  oft  when  on  my  couch  I  lie 

In  vacant  or  in  pensive  mood, 

They  flash  upon  that  inward  eye 

Which  is  the  bliss  of  solitude' 

It  is  well  for  our  northern  yellow  daffodils  that  they 
should  be  thus  associated  with  one  of  the  most  beauti- 
ful passages  in  which  any  poet  has  ever  revealed  to 
us  something  of  the  working  of  his  own  memory  and 

*  I  allude  to  the  Ribes  Grossularia,  sometimes  called  Ribes  Uva-crispa* 
the  Gooseberry  Ribes  ;  not  to  the  Ribes  Rubrumt  Ribes  petrceum,  or  Ribes 
nigrumt  various  species  of  currant  Ribes. 


March  —  Herrick.  83 

imagination.  And  then  we  have  a  very  exquisite  little 
poem  by  Herrick,  in  which  he  laments  their  too  early 
disappearance ;  a  regret  which  has  been  felt  by  many 
others  who  have  loved  the  flower,  yet  never,  it  is  prob- 
able, expressed  with  such  exquisite  conciseness,  — 

'  Fair  daffodils,  we  weep  to  see 

You  haste  away  so  soon. 
As  yet  the  early-rising  sun 
Has  not  attained  its  n< 

Stay,  stay 
Until  the  hasting  day 

Has  run 

But  to  the  even-song, 
And  having  prayed  together  we 
Will  go  with  you  along.* 

But  of  all  the  associations  which  are  attached  to  our 
golden  narcissus,  the  most  ennobling  is  its  near  relation- 
ship to  the  '  poet's  narcissus'  of  the  Mediterranean,  which 
bears  a  solitary  flower  of  pure  white,  with  a  yellow  'crown 
often  edged  with  orange  or  crimson  ;  and  this  is  believed 
to  be  the  flower  to  which  the  beautiful  Greek  legend  has 
given  the  charm  and  interest  which  belong  to  imagina- 
tive tradition,  and  to  that  alone.  The  different  stories 
of  Narcissus  agree  in  these  particulars,  that  he  contem- 
plated the  reflection  of  himself  in  the  river  Cephisus  or 
in  a  fountain,  and  afterwards  became  a  flower,  either 
because  his  blood  was  changed  into  one  after  suicide, 
or  because  a  flower  grew  beside  his  grave  after  he  died 
of  sorrow  for  his  twin  sister,  unheeding  the  charms  of 
Echo.  The  stories  differ  as  to  his  reason  for  gazing 
upon  his  own  image ;  some  say  that  he  became  enam- 


84  March  —  Legend  of  Narcissus. 

cured  of  it  fancying  it  to  be  a  water-nymph,  and 
others  that  he  could  not  help  looking  at  it  because  it 
reminded  him  of  the  sister  that  he  had  loved  too  much 
and  lost.  The  popular  impression  seems  to  be  that 
Narcissus  was  a  beautiful  youth  who  simply  admired 
his  own  beauty,  and  gazed  upon  his  form  as  it  was 
reflected  in  the  smooth  water,  afterwards  becoming  a 
flower  on  the  river's  brim,  and  continuing,  as  a  flower, 
the  habit  of  self -admiration  which  he  had  contracted 
in  his  human  adolescence.  This  last  interpretation,  or 
simplification,  of  the  old  legends,  whose  details  it  drops 
altogether,  is  still  very  happily  in  accordance  with  the 
genuine  old  Greek  spirit,  the  spirit  of  a  time  when  no 
possessor  of  eminent  physical  beauty  could  remain  un- 
aware of  a  gift  so  much  appreciated,  but  would  see  it 
reflected,  not  only  in  the  waters  of  the  Cephisus  or  other 
rivers,  but  in  the  admiring  eyes  of  all  Greek  men  and 
women  whenever  he  appeared  in  public.  In  any  shape 
it  is  peculiarly  an  artist's  legend,  having  so  direct  a  ref- 
erence to  beauty,  so  that  it  has  often  been  illustrated 
by  modern  painters  and  sculptors.  We  do  not  feel  very 
grateful  to  those  later  classical  writers  who  have  been  at 
the  pains  to  inform  us  that  our  /caka  vdpKicrcros  (as  The- 
ocritus called  it)  has  no  especial  association  with  beauty, 
and  is  not  called  so  after  the  beautiful  youth  who  was 
beloved  by  Echo,  but  takes  its  name  simply  from  vdptcr), 
or,  vapKao),  with  reference  to  its  narcotic  properties.  Was 
the  flower  called  vdpKia-cros  before  the  legend  existed, 
and  is  the  legend  itself,  as  Keats  imagined,  simply  the 
beautiful  fancy  of  some  early  poet  who,  '  in  some  'deli- 


March — Young  Hemlock.  85 

cious  ramble,'  found  the  flower  looking  at  itself  in  the 
water,  and  imagined  for  it  the  story  that  we  know  ? 

'  And  on  the  bank  a  lonely  flower  he  spied, 
A  meek  and  forlorn  flower,  with  nought  of  pride, 
Drooping  its  beauty  o'er  the  watery  clearness, 
To  woo  its  own  sad  image  into  nearness : 
Deaf  to  light  Zephyrus  it  would  not  move ; 
But  still  would  seem  to  droop,  to  pine,  to  love. 
So  while  the  poet  stood  in  this  sweet  spot, 
Some  fainter  gleamings  o'er  his  fancy  shot, 
Nor  was  it  long  ere  he  had  told  the  tale 
Of  young  Narcissus,  and  sad  Echo's  bale,' 


XVII. 

Young  Hemlock  —  Socrates  —  Authorized   Suicides  —  The   Death  of 
Socrates  —  Peach-bloom  —  Apricot  Blossoms  —  Value  of  Old  Walls. 

THERE  is  a  corner  of  a  neglected  old  garden  at  the 
Val  Ste.  VeVonique  in  which  grows  a  certain  plant 
very  abundantly,  that  inevitably  reminds  us  of  an  ancient 
philosopher.  Towards  the  end  of  March  it  is  all  carpeted 
with  young  hemlock,  which  at  this  stage  of  its  existence 
lies  almost  perfectly  flat  upon  the  ground,  and  covers  it 
with  one  of  the  most  minutely  beautiful  designs  that  can 
possibly  be  imagined ;  the  delicate  division  and  sub- 
division of  the  fresh  green  leaves  making  a  pattern  that 
would  be  fit  for  some  small  room,  if  a  skilful  manu- 
facturer copied  it.  Our  own  hemlock  is  believed  to  be 
identical  with  that  which  caused  the  death  of  Socrates, 


8  6  March  —  Socra  tes. 

but  its  action  in  northern  countries  is  much  feebler  than 
in  the  warmer  climate  of  the  Mediterranean.  The  Athe- 
nians added  poppy-juice  to  the  infusion  of  hemlock,  that 
the  approach  of  death  might  be  painless  ;  and  it  is  said 
by  Valerius  Maximus  that  the  civil  authorities  of  Mar- 
seilles kept  a  supply  of  this  drink  always  ready  for 
weary  ones  who  had  obtained  the  permission  of  the 
Senate  to  lay  down  the  burden  of  existence.  Those  in- 
deed were  waters  of  oblivion  ;  and  it  is  astonishing  how 
easily,  in  certain  conditions  of  society,  men  have  come 
to  look  on  death  as  a  deliverer,  to  be  invoked  whenever 
life  is  felt  to  be  unpleasantly  painful,  or  even  simply 
ennuyeuse.  But  the  death  of  Socrates,  half  voluntary, 
was  grander  than  their  death  which  was  wholly  volun- 
tary. His  dignity  seemed  to  him  incompatible  with 
flight,  and  he  awaited  the  fatal  cup  with  that  perfect 
mental  clearness  which  is  so  well  known  to  us.  He  died 
for  having  preached  the  philosophy  of  the  conscience, 
which  the  Athenians  instinctively  felt  to  be  opposed  to 
the  antique  religion  of  the  State,  however  careful  he 
might  be  in  external  conformity  to  its  rites.* 

In  the  same  old  abandoned  garden  where  the  hem- 
lock grows  on  the  walls  there  remain  a  few  fruit-trees, 


*  '  En  vain  prenait-il  soin  d'assister  a  toutes  les  fetes  et  de  prendre 
part  aux  sacrifices;  ses  croyances  et  ses  paroles  dementaient  sa  con- 
duite.  II  fondait  une  religion  nouvelle,  qui  etait  le  contraire  de  la  relig- 
ion de  la  cite.  On  1'accusa  avec  verite  "de  ne  pas  adorer  les  dieux 
que  1'etat  adorait."  On  le  fit  perir  pour  avoir  attaque  les  coutumes  et 
les  croyances  des  anc£tres,  ou,  comme  on  disait,  pour  avoir  corrompu 
la  generation  presente.' — La  Citl  antique,  by  M.  FUSTEL  DE  Cou- 
LANGES. 


March  —  Apricot  Blossoms.  87 

and  amongst  these  some  peaches  and  apricots.  They 
are  in  full  bloom  towards  the  end  of  March,  and  of  all 
the  beautiful  sights  to  be  seen  at  this  time  of  the  year 
I  know  of  none  to  be  compared  to  these  old  peach-trees 
with  their  wealth  of  rosy  bloom,  which  would  be  beauti- 
ful in  any  situation,  but  is  so  especially  in  this  because 
there  happen  to  be  some  mellow-tinted  walls  behind 
them,  the  very  background  that  a  painter  would  delight 
in.  There  is  some  pretty  coloring  in  the  apricot  blos- 
soms, on  account  of  the  pink  calyx  and  the  pinkish  brown 
of  the  young  twigs,  which  has  an  influence  on  the  effect, 
but  the  peach  is  incomparably  richer ;  and  after  the 
grays  of  wintry  trees  and  wintry  skies  the  sight  is  glad- 
dened beyond  measure  by  the  flush  of  peach-blossom 
and  the  blue  of  the  clear  spring  heaven.  But  to  enjoy 
these  two  fresh  and  pure  colors  to  the  utmost  we  need 
some  quiet  coloring  in  the  picture,  and  nothing  supplies 
this  better  than  such  old  walls  as  those  of  the  monastic 
buildings  at  the  Val  Ste.  Veronique ;  walls  that  Nature 
has  been  painting  in  her  own  way  for  full  four  hundred 
years,  with  the  most  delicate  changes  of  gray  and  brown 
and  dark  gleamings  of  bronze  and  gold.  There  is  some- 
thing, too,  which  gratifies  other  feelings  than  those  of 
simple  vision  in  the  renewal  of  the  youth  of  Nature, 
contrasting  with  the  steady  decay  of  any  ancient  human 
work ;  and  in  the  contrast,  between  her  exquisiteness, 
her  delicacy,  her  freshness,  as  exhibited  in  a  thing  so 
perfect  as  a  fresh  peach-blossom,  with  its  rosy  color,  its 
almond-perfume,  its  promise  of  luscious  fruit,  —  and  the 
roughness  of  all  that  man  can  do,  even  at  his  best. 


88  March  — Little  Fields. 


XVIII. 

Scenery  round  the  Val  Ste.  Veronique —  Little  Fields — Oxen  and 
Horses  —  Ploughing  with  Oxen  —  Example  for  the  Intellectual  — 
How  a  Peasant  Ploughed  —  Beautiful  Grouping  —  Splendor  of  the 
Ploughshare  —  Polish  of  Labor  —  Independence  and  Dignity  of 
Ploughmen  —  Resolute  Will  and  Strength  needed  in  Ploughing. 

IT  is  one  of  the  most  striking  peculiarities  of  the 
scenery  around  the  Val  Ste.  Veronique,  that  al- 
though the  country  is  almost  entirely  covered  with  dense 
forest,  and  although  the  land  is  a  sea  of  hills  with  nar- 
row valleys  between  them,  there  are  here  and  there  lit- 
tle patches  of  it  in  full  tillage,  and  these  are  often  placed 
in  the  most  unlikely  situations.  You  will  occasionally 
come  upon  a  little  field,  islanded  in  the  forest,  and 
occupying  very  likely  just  the  most  awkward  bit  of 
steeply-sloping  hillside  that  is  to  be  found  there,  and 
yet  this  little  field  will  be  ploughed  and  sown  with  the 
utmost  diligence  and  affection.  I  know  two  or  three 
such  places,  which  not  only  are  on  a  most  inconvenient 
slope  to  begin  with,  but  have  also  on  their  own  sur- 
face a  variety  of  minor  inconveniences,  in  the  shape  of 
miniature  hills  and  valleys,  or  lumps  and  holes,  which 
seem  as  if  they  would  baffle  the  most  ingenious  plough- 
man who  ever  stood  behind  a  team  of  oxen.  With 
horses,  it  is  unnecessary  to  observe,  such  work  as  this 
would  be  simply  an  impossibility.  The  heaviest  and 
most  sluggish  breed  of  horses  in  the  world  would  still 


March  — Ploughing  with  Oxen.  89 

be  far  too  impatient  for  a  kind  of  labor  which  is  as  try- 
ing to  the  patience  of  animals  as  if  it  were  expressly 
contrived  to  irritate  and  torment  them.  The  oxen  go 
through  it  in  their  own  inimitably  firm  and  patient  way, 
often  dragging  the  plough  against  a  slope  so  steep  that 
merely  to  climb  it,  without  dragging  any  thing  at  all, 
would  be  in  itself  an  exhausting  kind  of  labor,  yet  keep- 
ing up  to  their  work  always  steadily  and  well,  as  if  they 
wore  inwardly  sustained  by  the  firmest  sense  of  duty. 
Such  is  the  difficulty  of  the  ground  that  a  light  plough 
requires  six  oxen  to  work  it,  and  often  eight.  There 
is  a  certain  field  on  a  hillside  visible  from  the  Val  Ste. 
Veronique  which  especially  interests  me  when  the  farmer 
is  ploughing  it,  which  he  does  so  conscientiously  that  his 
example  would  be  excellent  if-  transferred  to  the  intel- 
lectual sphere ;  and  many  a  student,  who  finds  the 
ground  before  him  irregular  and  arduous,  would  do  well 
to  imitate  that  thoroughness  which  will  leave  no  corner 
of  it  untilled.  There  is  one  place  which  interested  me 
most  especially,  a  sort  of  cup  or  hollow  just  on  the  edge 
of  the  field,  so  that  the  forest  advanced  into  the  very 
middle  of  it,  and  you  could  not  go  down  one  slope  and 
up  the  other,  which  would  have  been  comparatively  con- 
venient, but  must  necessarily,  if  you  would  plough  the 
place  at  all,  take  your  team  of  oxen  straight  into  the  hol- 
low, then  turn  them,  and  bring  them  out  again  up  a  slope 
as  steep  as  a  house-roof.  Would  the  peasant  attempt 
this  ?  I  watched  him  the  first  day  to  see  what  he  would 
do,  but  the  question  was  very  soon  decided.  He  took 
his  eight  oxen  straight  over  the  edge  of  the  hole,  down 


90  March  —  Beautiful  Grouping. 

into  the  bottom  of  it,  where  they  were  huddled  in  tem- 
porary confusion,  then  calling  them  by  their  names  got 
them  into  order  and  bravely  ploughed  his  way  out  again. 
This  he  repeated  till  the  sides  of  the  hole  were  as  well 
ploughed  as  any  other  part  of  his  little  field,  and  the 
groupings  of  his  eight  oxen  when  they  got  into  it,  with 
their  grandly  strenuous  labor  as  they  were  getting  out 
of  it,  were  well  worth  the  study  of  an  animal-painter. 
The  clear  early  sunshine  cast  them  into  strong  light  and 
shadow,  and  the  creamy  white  of  the  oxen  was  splendid 
against  the  dark  reds  and  yellows  of  the  earth. 

That  word  ' splendid'  which  I  have  used  just  now, 
without  especially  thinking  about  it,  reminds  me  of  the 
right  and  accurate  employment  of  the  same  word  by 
Virgil  with  reference  to  a  ploughshare.  His  '  sulco  at- 
tritus  (incipiat)  splendescere  vomer '  is  just  one  of  those 
touches  which  show  an  artist's  sense  of  what  has  been 
called  the  poetry  of  common  things.  Anybody  can  see 
that  the  Shah's  diamonds  are  splendid,  and  perhaps  the 
most  essentially  vulgar  minds  are  the  most  likely  to  be 
strongly  impressed  by  a  splendor  so  much  associated 
with  great  pecuniary  value  ;  but  only  an  artist  or  poet 
would  notice  the  shining  of  a  common  agricultural  im- 
plement. And  yet  few  things  in  the  world  are  more 
resplendent  than  a  well-used  ploughshare  as  it  catches 
the  glory  of  the  sunshine ;  and  it  may  be  doubted  whether 
even  the  glitter  of  martial  steel  can  awaken  more  poetical 
associations.  It  is  a  fine  sight  to  see  a  flash  of  sunshine 
run  along  a  restless  line  of  bayonets,  or  on  the  burnished 
helmets  of  some  emperor's  regiment  of  guards ;  but  a 


March  —  Polish  of  Labor.  91 

true  poet  would  be  set  dreaming  just  as  surely  by  the 
polish  of  the  ploughshare  —  a  polish  not  due  to  any  in- 
tentional scheming  about  effect,  but  simply  a  proof  of 
labor,  like  that  noble  polish  which  comes  of  itself  upon 
the  laborious  human  mind  when  it  has  toiled  in  the  in- 
tellectual fields.  The  mere  fact  that  Virgil  noticed  the 
shining  of  a  ploughshare  nineteen  hundred  years  ago  is 
of  itself  a  poetical  association,  as  Thomson  felt  when  he 
wrote :  — 

'  Such  themes  as  these  the  rural  Maro  sang 
To  wide  imperial  Rome,  in  the  full  height 
Of  elegance  and  taste,  by  Greece  refined. 
In  ancient  times,  the  sacred  plough  employ'd 
The  kings  and  awful  fathers  of  mankind. 
And  some,  with  whom  compared,  your  insect  tribes 
Are  but  the  beings  of  a  summer's  day, 
Have  held  the  scale  of  empire,  ruled  the  storm 
Of  mighty  war ;  then,  with  victorious  hand 
Disdaining  little  delicacies,  seized 
The  plough,  and  greatly  independent  lived/ 

'  I  was  bred  to  the  plough,'  wrote  Burns,  *  and  am  in- 
dependent ; '  the  two  ideas  of  ploughing  and  indepen- 
dence connecting  themselves  together  very  easily,  in 
part  perhaps  because  the  ploughman  whilst  he  works 
is  not  commanded  by  another,  but  is  lord  of  his  own 
team,  and  guides  his  own  implement  as  it  makes  the 
long  furrow  in  the  earth.  There  is  certainly  a  great 
dignity  in  the  grand  old  agricultural  operations ;  so 
much  dignity,  indeed,  that  they  are  compatible  with  the 
grandest  traditions  of  religious  or  political  history.  One 
is  tempted  to  avoid  the  allusion  to  Cincinnatus  because 


92      March  —  Strength  needed  in  Ploughing. 

it  is  so  familiar  to  every  one,  but  I  may  observe  that 
the  very  familiarity  of  it,  the  universality  of  its  recep- 
tion and  preservation  in  the  memory  of  the  cultivated 
world,  is  the  proof  that  we  have  an  ideal  sense  of  a  cer- 
tain harmony  and  compatibility  between  the  dignity  of 
ploughing  and  the  dignity  of  government  which  finds  its 
satisfaction  in  the  story  of  that  worthy  Roman.  And 
I  think  the  true  dignity  and  grandeur  of  this  labor  is 
never  so  conspicuous  as  it  is  under  circumstances  such 
as  those  which  I  have  just  now  attempted  to  describe, 
when  the  earth  to  be  subdued  is  so  difficult  and  rebel- 
lious, and  it  is  necessary  to  have  a  strong  team  of  six 
or  eight  well-trained  oxen  thoroughly  under  command. 
Think  of  the  long  hours  from  early  dawn  to  sunset,  with 
the  incessant  exercise  of  resolute  will  and  strong,  con- 
trolling arm  on  the  plough-handle ;  a  guidance  needing 
far  more  strength  than  that  of  the  seaman's  tiller,  whilst 
the  team  of  animals  is  not  so  mechanically  obedient  as 
the  unresisting  ship !  Steadily  they  all  go  forward  to- 
gether, team  and  plough  and  ploughman,  through  wind 
and  calm,  through  shine  or  shower,  and  still  the  iron 
coulter  turns  up  the  heavy  soil,  resisting  always,  and 
always  resisting  vainly! 


March  —  Sowing.  93 


XIX. 

Sowing  —  Its  sublime  Trust  —  Spiritual  Sowing — Parable  of  the  Sower 

—  Intellectual  Sowing —  Our  Age  more  favorable  to  it  than  other  Ages 

—  An  Old  Peasant  —  The  First  Sower  —  The  First  Cultivator  of  the 
Cereals  —  Roman  Bread — Our  Ignorance  of  our  earliest  Benefactors. 

OF  at  least  equal  dignity  is  the  great  religious  act  of 
sowing,  with  its  sublime  well-grounded  confidence 
in  the  natural  repayment  of  what  we  wisely  trust  to 
Nature.  We  are  so  familiar  with  this  act  of  confidence 
that  the  meaning  of  it  is  almost  lost  to  our  apprehension, 
yet  man's  trust  in  the  order  of  the  universe  is  never  more 
grandly  proved  than  when  he  goes  forth  from  some  poor 
house  where  the  children  have  scanty  bread,  and  carries 
the  precious  grain  and  scatters  it  on  the  ground.  There 
is  another  kind  of  sowing  on  which  it  is  not  always 
possible  to  have  such  secure  reliance,  because  it  is  so 
difficult  to  know  accurately  the  condition  of  the  soil. 
He  who  sows  corn  sows  it  in  earth  that  can  be  analyzed, 
and  agricultural  chemistry  can  tell  him  with  great 
certainty  what  may  be  his  chances  of  success  ;  but  who 
knows  the  minds  of  nations  and  their  chemistry  ?  who 
can  tell  whether  the  most  precious  seed-thoughts  of 
philosophy  will  lie  utterly  unproductive  or  yield  illimit- 
able harvests  ?  The  condition  of  that  soil  varies  from 
year  to  year ;  one  year  you  might  as  well  sow  corn  on 


94  March  —  Intellectual  Sowing. 

icebergs  as  trust  any  living  thought  to  the  deadly  cold- 
ness of  the  world,  and  yet  a  few  years  later  this  same 
world  will  be  no  longer  an  iceberg  but  good  earth  wait- 
ing for  the  seed.  We  all  of  us  know  the  parable  of 
the  sower,  how  'the  sower  soweth  the  word'  by  the 
wayside,  and  on  stony  ground,  and  amongst  thorns, 
and  finally  on  good  ground  also.  That  is  the  way  the 
preacher  sows  his  doctrine,  and  in  every  age  from  the  day 
when  that  parable  was  first  spoken  the  preacher  has  had 
exactly  those  chances  of  success.  But  it  is  not  quite  the 
same  in  the  intellectual  sphere,  for  here  the  soil  itself  all 
changes  together,  and  in  one  age  it  will  be  all  stones  or 
thorns,  whilst  in  another  it  will  be  good  ground  ready 
for  the  reception  of  great  thoughts  or  astonishing 
discoveries.  And  whatever  may  be  the  faults  of  the 
age  in  which  we  live,  whatever  may  be  the  crudeness, 
rawness,  uncouthness,  of  our  half-developed  industrial 
system  with  the  unpleasant  forms  of  human  life  which 
it  has  made  discouragingly  conspicuous,  one  thing  at 
least  may  be  boldly  advanced  in  defence  of  it ;  namely, 
that  it  is  incomparably  more  favorable  than  any  age 
that  has  preceded  it  to  the  sowing  of  the  seeds  of 
knowledge. 

There  is  an  old  peasant  near  the  Val  Ste.  Veronique 
whom  I  like  to  see  especially  at  this  time  of  the  year. 
He  is  very  tall  and  thin,  with  large  bones,  and  a  white 
head  carried  high  with  natural  dignity.  When  he  walks 
steadily  along  the  furrow,  casting  the  seed  with  that 
regular  motion  of  the  hand  and  arm  which  comes  from 
years  of  practice,  I  look  at  him  and  think  that,  of  all  the 


March  —  The  First  Sower.  95 

great  works  that  ancient  tradition  has  handed  down  to 
us,  there  is  none  more  full  of  majesty  than  this.  The 
old  man  has  sown  crops  that  were  harvested  long  ago, 
and  his  fathers  before  him  have  done  this  also  for  un- 
numbered generations.  When  the  legions  of  Caesar 
swept  through  the  country  in  pursuit  of  the  Helvetii, 
there  were  great  granaries  in  the  hill-fortresses  that  the 
Gauls  had  filled  from  their  well-cultivated  cornfields. 
In  what  far  Eastern  land,  I  wonder,  did  the  sower  first 
go  forth  to  sow?  And  what  keen-minded,  far-seeing, 
early  discoverer,  aided  by  no  hint  from  Science,  first  con- 
ceived the  notion  of  cultivating  those  utterly  unpromising 
gramina  which  were  shortly  to  become  corn,  and  wheat, 
and  barley  ?  Nobody  knows  how  long  the  human  race 
used  the  cereal  grasses  before  the  clever  bakers  found 
out  at  last  the  art  of  making  what  we  call  a  loaf  of  bread. 
It  was  nearly  six  hundred  years  after  the  foundation  of 
Rome  when  the  Roman  bakers  developed  their  art  to  a 
degree  before  undreamed  of,  and  produced  what  at  that 
time  was  a  novelty  and  a  luxury,  but  is  to  us  a  matter  of 
primary  necessity.  Before  that  they  made  bread  indeed, 
but  of  the  sort  that  was  eaten  by  the  besieged  Parisians, 
with  bits  of  straw  and  awns  in  it ;  and  soldiers  on  the 
march  carried  a  sack  of  ill-ground  flour,  that  they  mixed 
with  water  when  they  came  to  a  spring  or  stream.  We 
know  nothing  of  the  first  discoverers,  humanity's  earliest 
benefactors,  but  not  the  least  among  them  were  the 
discoverers  of  the  cereals.  The  author  of  '  Lothair  '  did 
well  to  remind  us  of  what  we  forget  so  easily  —  the  merits 
of  discoverers  whose  discoveries  have  been  long  familiar. 


96  March  —  The  Common  Reed. 

We  think  that  nothing  can  be  more  natural  than  the 
growth  of  the  cereals,  but  it  is  not  so  :  the  wild  grasses 
with  tiny  uneatable  seeds,  these  are  natural,  and  not  the 
nourishing  cereals. 


XX. 


The  Common  Reed  —  Music  of  Reeds  —  Pan  and  a  Reedy  Stream  — 
Sadness  of  the  Willow  and  of  Reeds  —  Tennyson's  use  of  them  — 
Song  of  the  Dying  Swan  —  'The  Morte  d' Arthur  '  — Association  of 
Reeds  with  a  dreary  Scene  —  Mrs.  Browning's  Association  of  Reeds 
with  the  Sacrifice  of  the  Poet  to  his  Art  —  Associations  of  noble 
Utility  —  Various  practical  uses  of  Reeds  —  The  Reed's  Motto  —  The 
lesson  of  the  Reed  not  very  noble  —  Pascal's  comparison  of  man  to 
a  Reed. 

A  MONGST  the  good  gifts  of  Nature  which  havo 
JL~X  needed  absolutely  no  amelioration  by  human 
care  or  culture,  one  of  the  best  and  handsomest  is  the 
common  reed,  and  March  is  its  harvest-time.  There 
]'«•  hardly  any  thing  in  Nature  more  delicately  beautiful 
than  some  damp  corner  where  the  reeds  have  grown  un- 
disturbed, and  turned  finally  to  that  pale  reed-yellow,  a 
tint  far  exceeding  in  refinement  the  golden  hues  of  straw. 
The  long  lanceolate  leaves  seem  like  fairy  papyrus,  on 
which  some  elfin  bard  might  indite  his  exquisite  inven- 
tions, and  the  tall  stalks  rustle  together  as  the  cool  March 
wind  blows  through  them,  and  the  sound  is  very  sad  and 
melancholy ;  because  although  the  glorious  spring  is 
coming,  when  the  earth  will  be  covered  with  flowers, 


March  —  Music  of  Reeds.  97 

these  last  year's  reeds  will  never  be  green  again,  and 
they  watch  the  spring  as  old  people  watch  sadly  some 
festival  of  youth.  Their  music  is  not  unknown  to  thee, 
great  Pan  ! 

'  Who  lovest  to  see  the  hamadryads  dress 
Their  ruffled  locks  where  meeting  hazels  darken, 
And  through  whole  solemn  hours  dost  sit  and  hearken 
The  dreary  melody  of  bedded  reeds 
In  desolate  places,  where  dark  moisture  breeds 
The  pipy  hemlock  to  strange  overgrowth, 
Bethinking  thee  how  melancholy  loth 
Thou  wast  to  lose  fair  Syrinx.' 

And  in  another  poem  by  Keats,  where  Pan  and  a 
reedy  stream  both  recur  to  his  fancy,  we  have  in  the 
space  of  four  lines  a  strong  expression  of  pity,  with 
weeping,  sighing,  and  desolation  :  — 

*  Poor  Nymph  —  poor  Pan  —  how  did  we  weep  to  find 
Nought  but  a  lovely  sighing  of  the  wind 
Along  the  reedy  stream  !  a  half-heard  strain, 
Full  of  sweet  desolation,  balmy  pain.1 

As  the  willow  is  associated  with  the  sadness  of  dis- 
appointed lovers  — 

'  The  willow,  worne  of  fornlorne  paramours  '  — 

so  whenever  the  poets  speak  of  reeds,  it  is  in  connection 
with  dreariness  or  weariness  of  some  kind,  and  always 
to  give  sadness  to  the  landscape.  This  may  be  because 
no  plant  answers  so  exactly  to  our  idea  of  ghosts  as 
reeds  do  when  they  stand  still  in  their  places,  so  changed 
and  pale,  when  the  sap  no  longer  flows,  and  a  phantom 

7 


98         March  —  Tennyson 's  use  of  Reeds. 

of  their  former  self  remains,  all  ghastly  in  the  twilight. 
So  Tennyson  says  :  — 

1  Ever  the  weary  wind  went  on, 
And  took  the  reed-tops  as  it  went.* 

And  farther  on  in  the  same  poem  the  song  of  the 
dying  swan  is  associated  with 

1  The  wavy  swell  of  the  soughing  reeds.' 

And  in  the  '  Morte  d'Arthur,'  where  the  poet  has 
sought  every  circumstance  which  could  heighten  the  ef- 
fect of  melancholy  sublimity,  —  the  '  dark  strait  of  barren 
land/  the  sea-wind  singing  '  shrill,  chill,  with  flakes  of 
foam/  l  the  winter  moon/  —  he  has  not  failed  to  remem- 
ber the  poetical  use  of  reeds  :  — 

» 
'  Better  to  leave  Excalibur  conceal'd 

There  in  the  many -knotted  water/lags 

That  whistled  stiff  and  dry  about  the  marge? 

And  a  few  lines  farther  on,  — 

'  "  I  heard  the  ripple  washing  in  the  reeds , 
And  the  wild  water  lapping  on  the  crag." 

To  whom  replied  King  Arthur,  faint  and  pale, 
"  Thou  hast  betrayed  thy  nature  and  thy  name."  ' 

This  reference  to  the  reeds  occurs  a  second  time  with 
the  effect  of  a  mournful  refrain  :  — 

*  Then  spoke  King  Arthur,  breathing  heavily, 
"  What  is  it  thou  hast  seen,  or  what  hast  heard  ? " 

And  answer  made  the  bold  Sir  Bedivere, 
"  I  heard  the  water  lapping  on  the  crag, 
And  the  long  ripple  washing  in  the  reeds"  ' 

Even  in  Mrs.  Browning's  fine  little  poem,  '  A  Musical 


March  —  Associations  of  Utility.  99 

Instrument/  there  is  an  undertone  of  regretful  melan- 
choly. The  '  great  god  Pan  '  goes  '  down  in  the  reeds 
by  the  river,'  and  hacks  and  hews  at  them  till  he  has 
got  the  material  for  his  instrument  ;  but  then  comes  the 
deeper  meaning  of  the  poem  —  the  regret  that  poetical 
culture  and  discipline  should  so  isolate  us  from  the 
common  world  ;  and  pray  just  observe  how  sadly  sweet 
are  the  final  cadences  of  the  verse,  and  how  much  the 
sadness  is  aided  by  our  old  association  of  melancholy 
with  reeds  :  — 

*  Yet  half  a  beast  is  the  great  god  Pan 

To  laugh,  as  he  sits  by  the  river, 
Making  a  poet  out  of  a  man. 
The  true  gods  sigh  for  the  cost  and  pain,  —  - 
For  the  reed  that  grows  nevermore  again 
As  a  reed  with  the  reeds  in  the  river* 

Reeds  have  many  associations  of  utility  as  well  as 
poetry.  The  reed-pen,  still  used  by  a  few  artists  and 
greatly  valued  by  them  on  account  of  its  qualities  as  an 
instrument  for  powerful  and  picturesque  design,  was  in 
the  early  centuries  of  our  era  universally  employed  by 
authors  and  transcribers,  so  that  the  plant  has  been  a 
servant  both  to  literature  and  art,  and  has  the  dignity 
which  belongs  to  every  instrument  of  culture.*  Besides 
these  delicate  uses,  the  reed  has  aided  the  early  steps 
of  civilization  by  providing  its  first  requisite,  —  a  roof  ; 
and  a  requisite  only  secondary  to  that,  ^pdy^a,  a  fence, 


*  To  this  might  be  added  some  reference  to  the  papyrus  of  antiq- 
uity, which  was  the  leaf  of  the  Nile  reed,  so  that  this  plant  has  supplied 
both  pens  and  paper. 


ioo  March — The  Reed's  Motto. 

so  that  botanists  have  called  it  Arundo  Phragmites. 
The  moralists,  on  their  part,  have  found  the  reed 
extremely  useful  as  an  illustration  of  weakness  and  in- 
stability, which  may  however  save  itself  by  a  timely 
yielding  to  forces  that  cannot  be  resisted.  The  reed's 
motto  is  given  with  the  neatest  brevity  by  Lafontaine : — 
'  Je  plie,  et  ne  romps  pas.' 

But  although  the  reed  in  the  fable  had  practically  the 
advantage  over  the  oak  that  the  wind  uprooted,  and  al- 
though worldly  prudence  always  counsels  us  to  do  as 
the  reed  did,  and  bend,  —  still  it  may  be  observed  that 
the  reed's  lesson  is  not  a  very  noble  one,  and  that  hu- 
manity scarcely  requires  it,  being  only  too  ready  to  bow 
before  every  breath  that  assumes  the  tone  of  authority. 
And  it  may  be  observed,  farther,  that  whatever  political 
liberty,  and  whatever  intellectual  light,  may  be  at  pres- 
ent enjoyed  by  the  most  advanced  nations  of  the  world, 
are  due  to  exceptional  men,  who  had  much  more  of 
the  oak  in  them  than  the  reed  ;  men  who  often  paid 
their  resistance  with  their  life,  but  who  were  not  fail- 
ures, since  their  example  has  bequeathed  fortitude  to 
their  successors.  Pascal  said,  'Lhomme  nest  qu'un 
roseau,  le  plus  faible  de  la  nature,  mats  cest  un  rcseau 
pensant!  Surely,  however,  the  thinkers  are  of  robuster 
quality  than  that. 


April  —  Play  of  L  ight  and  Shadow.       i  o  i 


XXI. 

April  —  Play  of  Light  and  Shadow  —  Genuine  April  Weather  —  Hills 
in  April  Weather  —  The  Willow  in  April  —  Streams  in  April  —  Con- 
stable—  His  observation  about  Clouds  —  His  Affection  for  the 
Spring-time  —  Chaucer  —  His  wonderful  -Passion  for  Landscape  — 
His  description  of  Spring  —  The  Draba  Verna  —  Figwort  Ranun- 
culus—  Wordsworth's  Poem  on  the  Little  Celandine  —  Buttercups 
—  The  Lesser  Celandine  in  Decay  —  Unresisting  nature  of  Decay 
in  Plants  —  Resistance  to  Decay  in  Men  —  Beautiful  Association  of 
the  name  Celandine. 

IT  happened  that  the  month  of  April  opened  with 
April's  own  characteristic  weather.  March  had 
ended  with  a  gray  sky  through  which  sunshine  filtered, 
as  it  were,  in  a  way  much  more  trying  to  the  strongest 
eyesight  than  the  intensest  glare  of  summer.  All  Nature 
was  a  picture  of  the  most  various  and  delicate  grays,  with 
fresh  green  sparingly  scattered  ;  a  sort  of  coloring  quite 
peculiar  to  the  season  and  full  of  a  quiet  charm,  when 
we  are  in  a  mood  quiet  enough  to  enjoy  it.  But  the 
first  of  April  brought  with  it  a  perfect  revolution. 
Instead  of  the  almost  uniform  gray  sky,  broken  only  by 
gleams  of  semi-transparence  in  the  universal  cloud- 
canopy,  we  had  now  separate  clouds,  having  a  magnifi- 
cent individuality,  and  sunshine  in  perfect  though  tem- 
porary splendor.  No  weather  is,  to  my  feeling,  so 
delightful  as  this  genuine  April  weather.  The  play  of 
light  and  shadow,  so  rapid  in  its  transitions,  so  powerful 


IO2         April — Hills  in  April  Weather. 

in  the  suddenness  of  its  unexpected  yet  most  effective 
contrasts,  would  of  itself  be  a  subject  of  inexhaustible 
interest  in  any  country  where  the  landscape  is  not  too 
irremediably  dull  for  any  thing  to  make  it  lively ;  but 
this  is  not  all.  In  genuine  April  weather  you.  have  not 
only  the  play  of  light  and  shadow,  but  that  of  mystery 
and  definition,  caused  by  the  frequent  showers,  which 
pass  before  the  hills  at  one  time  with  the  half-trans- 
parence of  a  veil,  at  another  with  the  opacity  of  a  curtain  ; 
so  that  it  is  hardly  possible  to  find  any  considerable 
extent  of  hill-scenery  of  which  one  part  will  not  be  in 
the  clearest  definition  that  brilliant  sunshine  and  a  pure 
atmosphere  can  give  to  it,  whilst  another  will  be  in 
purple  shadow,  and  a  third  paled  by  a  light-gray  shower. 
It  is  a  season,  too,  which  will  give  to  ordinary  hill-sce- 
nery much  of  the  life  and  glory  of  the  true  mountains. 
A  forest-covered  colline,  which  in  summer  is  simply  a 
rising  land  of  rather  sombre  green,  with  a  monotonous 
outline  on  a  blue  sky,  becomes,  under  the  lively  effects 
of  April,  as  rich  in  purple  and  blue,  and  silvery  grays  of 
distance,  as  a  mountain-range  in  the  north  of  Scotland. 
Nothing  can  exceed  the  vivacity  and  brilliance  of  these 
effects  in  April,  and  their  brilliance  is  heightened  to  the 
utmost  by  the  freshness  of  the  unsullied  greens  in  the 
foreground,  which  are  made  splendid  by  the  glittering 
varnish  of  the  rain.  This  is  the  time  of  the  willow's 
pride  and  glory.  He  is  as  yet  almost  alone  amongst 
the  trees,  and  begins  the  concert  of  the  year  with  a 
delicate  and  tender  solo,  to  which  we  are  all  sure  to 
listen;  and  he  is  sustained  by  an  accompaniment  of 


April — Constable.      v  103 

purple  background,  with  such  variations  of  sunshine  that 
his  singing,  not  naturally  of  the  strongest,  is  made  to 
seem  quite  powerful  for  the  time.  All  the  streams,  too, 
are  in  a  season  of  prosperity ;  for  although  they  are 
rather  swollen  by  frequent  showers,  they  run  plentifully 
but  not  foully  as  they  did  in  winter,  and  all  their  little 
islets  are  like  emeralds  with  the  new  grass  that  the  clear 
water  refreshes  as  it  flows  past  them. 

It  is  impossible  to  watch  the  effects  of  April  without 
thinking  of  a  painter  who  loved  and  understood  them 
better  than  any  other,  and  who  painted  them  in  all 
their  freshness  at  a  time  when  the  connoisseurship  ot 
all  Europe  was  in  the  brown  stage  of  art-criticism,  and 
liked  nothing  so  much  as  thickly-varnished  old  canvases, 
so  obscure  that  it  was  not  always  easy  to  distinguish 
what  the  artist  had  intended  to  represent.  Constable 
said  that  he  preferred  spring  to  autumn,  in  which  I  find 
it  difficult  to  agree  with  him  ;  but  as  he  loved  the  spring 
pre-eminently  he  studied  it  earnestly,  which  landscape- 
painters  who  pass  the  season  in  great  cities  have  few 
opportunities  for  doing.  There  is  a  description  of  an 
engraving  from  one  of  Constable's  pictures  of  Spring, 
written  by  the  artist  himself,  which  is  well  worth  quoting 
for  its  truth  of  observation  about  clouds.  '  It  may  per- 
haps,' he  says,  'give  some  idea  of  one  of  those  bright 
and  silvery  days  in  the  spring,  when  at  noon  large 
garish  clouds,  surcharged  with  hail  or  sleet,  sweep  with 
their  broad  shadows  the  fields,  woods,  and  hills  ;  and 
by  their  depths  enhance  the  value  of  the  vivid  greens 
and  yellows  so  peculiar  to  the  season.  The  natural 


IO4  April —  Chaucer. 

history,  if  the  expression  may  be  used,  of  the  skies, 
which  are  so  particularly  marked  in  the  hail-squalls  at 
this  time  of  the  year,  is  this  :  the  clouds  accumulate  in 
very  large  masses,  and  from  their  loftiness  seem  to  move 
but  slowly ;  immediately  upon  these  large  clouds  appear 
numerous  opaque  patches,  which  are  only  small  clouds 
passing  rapidly  before  them,  and  consisting  of  isolated 
portions  detached  probably  from  the  larger  cloud.  These, 
floating  much  nearer  the  earth,  may  perhaps  fall  in  with 
a  stronger  current  of  wind,  which,  as  well  as  their  com- 
parative lightness,  causes  them  to  move  with  greater 
rapidity ;  hence  they  are  called  by  wind-millers  and 
sailors  messengers,  and  always  portend  bad  weather. 
They  float  midway  in  what  may  be  termed  the  lanes 
of  the  clouds  ;  and  from  being  so  situated  are  almost 
uniformly  in  shadow,  receiving  a  reflected  light  only 
from  the  clear  blue  sky  immediately  above  them.  In 
passing  over  the  bright  parts  of  the  large  clouds  they 
appear  as  dark ;  but  in  passing  the  shadowed  parts 
they  assume  a  gray,  a  pale,  or  a  lurid  hue.' 

Notwithstanding  Constable's  passionate  affection  for 
the  spring-time,  and  the  advantage  of  possessing  an  eye 
that  had  been  educated  by  the  constant  practice  of  art, 
it  may  be  doubted  whether  he  felt  its  influences  more 
keenly  than  did  a  great  early  English  poet,  who  had 
been  influenced  by  no  such  general  appreciation  of  the 
beautiful  in  Nature  as  that  which  exists  (or  seems  to 
exist)  in  modern  society,  and  is  so  continually  stimulated 
by  modern  writers  and  artists.  It  is  truly  amazing  that 
a  poet  situated  as  Chaucer  was  situated,  who  had  seen 


April — His  Description  of  Spring.       105 

no  landscape  art  but  such  as  existed  in  the  backgrounds 
of  illuminated  manuscripts  or  the  sylvan  scenery  of 
hunting-pieces  in  mediaeval  tapestry,  who  had  read  no 
literature  in  which  the  landscape  sentiment  was  more 
developed  than  it  is  in  the  Eclogues  of  Virgil,  should 
have  felt  as  Chaucer  felt,  and  seen  what  he  perceived. 
I  do  not  mean  that  he  wrote  from  the  landscape-painter's 
point  of  view,  for  that  has  only  been  done  by  quite 
recent  poets,  and  the  attempt  has  in  most  instances  been 
injurious  to  their  compositions  as  literature,  which  is  not 
painting,  and  ought  not  to  imitate  painting  ;  but  I  mean, 
that  to  any  one  who  thoroughly  realizes  what  Chaucer's 
situation  was,  it  must  be  matter  of  astonishment  that  he 
loved  Nature  with  such  intensity.  There  is  a  sort  of 
quiet  enjoyment  of  Nature  in  the  classical  pastorals. 
Theocritus  and  Virgil  evidently  liked  a  country  life,  and 
they  mention  different  kinds  of  trees  and  shrubs,  and  a 
few  flowers,  with  a  tranquil  contentment  that  occasion- 
ally becomes  almost  affectionate  ;  but  they  have  nothing 
like  Chaucer's  passion.  The  note  of  the  following  ex- 
tract from  '  The  Flower  and  the  Leaf '  may,  it  is  true, 
seem  delicate  and  tender  rather  than  passionate,  yet  its 
tenderness  is  passion  in  repose  :  — 

*  When  shoures  sweet  of  raine  descended  soft, 
Causing  the  grounde  fele  times  and  oft 
Up  for  to  give  many  an  wholesome  aire, 
And  every  plaine  was  clothed  faire 

'  With  new  grene,  and  maketh  small  floures 
To  springen  here  and  there  in  field  and  mede, 
So  very  good  and  wholesome  be  the  shoures 


io6  April —  The  Draba   Verna. 

That  it  renueth  what  was  old  and  dede 
In  winter  time  ;  and  out  of  every  sede 
Springeth  the  hearbe,  so  that  every  wight 
Of  this  season  waxeth  glad  and  light.' 

If  from  the  '  small  floures '  of  Chaucer  we  descend 
to  particulars,  and  ask  of  what  '  small  floures '  the  verse 
at  once  reminds  us,  I  think  we  can  hardly  fail  to  re- 
member the  common  Draba,  or  Draba  verna,  which  is 
both  small  and  early,  and  as  pretty  in  its  elegant  humility 
as  many  little  plants  that  happen  to  be  more  popularly 
known.  Tiny  as  it  is,  with  stalks  just  strong  enough  to 
carry  its  little  pods  and  flowers,  and  not  burdened  by 
any  leaves,  for  they  lie  on  the  ground  about  its  root,  it 
still  has  an  appreciable  effect  on  the  color  of  an  April 
foreground,  which  it  powders  with  white  like  a  hail- 
shower,  and  even  at  a  distance  it  will  make  the  green  of 
a  pasture  grayer.  The  power  of  small  plants  in  the 
coloring  of  landscape  is  often  forced  upon  the  attention 
of  artists,  and  there  are  many  remarkable  examples  of  it 
in  different  parts  of  the  world.  The  Draba  does  not 
strike  the  eye  as  it  would  if  the  flower  were  scarlet  or 
bright  blue,  but  it  has  its  influence  nevertheless  as  a 
moderator  of  crude  greens. 

A  much  more  important  spring  flower  in  size  and 
splendor  is  the  Figwort  Ranunculus,  which,  happily 
for  its  reputation,  .possessed  a  much  prettier  and  more 
musical  name ;  probably  the  great  motive  that  induced 
Wordsworth  to  write  about  it.  The  rose  might  smell  as 
sweetly  by  another  name,  and  yet  not  occur  so  favor- 
ably to  the  euphony  of  verse.  Wordsworth,  in  a  foot- 


April —  The  Celandine.  107 

note,  called  the  Figwort  Ranunculus  '  common  pilewort,' 
but  he  was  extremely  careful  not  to  call  it  so  in  the 
stanzas  of  the  poem  itself.  Hear  how  prettily  the 
poetical  name  ends  the  first  stanza :  — 

'  Pansies,  lilies,  kingcups,  daisies, 
Let  them  live  upon  their  praises  j 
Long  as  there's  a  sun  that  sets 
Primroses  will  have  their  glory ; 
Long  as  there  are  violets, 
They  will  have  a  place  in  story : 
There's  a  flower  that  shall  be  mine, 
'Tis  the  little  Celandine.' 

And  again,  the  last  stanza  but  one :  — 

*  111  befall  the  yellow  flowers, 
Children  of  the  flaring  hours  ! 
Buttercups  that  will  be  seen 
Whether  we  will  see  or  no ; 
Others,  too,  of  lofty  mien  ; 
They  have  done  as  worldlings  do, 
Taken  praise  that  should  be  thine, 
Little,  humble  Celandine ! ' 

It  is  curious  what  a  hold  this  flower  seems  to  have 
taken  on  Wordsworth's  affections.  He  wrote  three  poems 
about  it,  two  in  the  rather  jingling  measure  of  the  stanzas 
just  quoted,  and  a  third,  of  far  more  serious  tone  and 
deeper  meaning,  in  a  measure  adapted  to  the  expression 
of  earnest  thought ;  and  so  closely  does  the  noble  sadness 
of  these  stanzas  associate  itself  with  the  flower  by  which 
they  were  suggested,  that  it  is  impossible  for  any  one 
who  has  read  Wordsworth  as  poetry  ought  to  be  read, 


io8        April —  The  Celandine  in  Decay. 

not  to  remember  them  when  he  sees  the  Lesser  Celandine 

in  her  decay. 

'  But  lately,  one  rough  day  this  Flower  I  passed, 
And  recognized  it,  though  an  altered  form, 
Now  standing  forth  an  offering  to  the  blast 
And  buffeted  at  will  by  rain  and  storm. 
I  stopped,  and  said  with  inly-muttered  voice, 
"  //  doth  not  love  the  shower,  nor  seek  the  cold. 
This  neither  is  its  courage  nor  its  choice, 
But  its  necessity  in  being  old. 
The  sunshine  may  not  cheer  it,  nor  the  dew  ; 
It  cannot  help  itself  in  its  decay."  ' 

Surely  in  all  the  range  of  poetry  there  is  no  finer  and 
ti  .ier  description  of  the  real  nature  of  decay  —  that  there 
is  no  courage  in  it,  nor  choice,  but  only  necessity  and 
helplessness  —  yet  in  the  association  with  old  age  in  man, 
which  occupies  the  concluding  stanza  of  this  poem,  one 
cheering  consideration  is  omitted,  that  the  note  of  melan- 
choly might  be  wholly  unrelieved.  It  is  certain  that  by 
courage  and  strength  of  will  men  really  can  resist,  for 
long  years,  some  of  the  worst  evils  of  old  age,  and  at 
least  one  happy  consequence  of  the  modern  feeling  de 
senectute  (so  different  from  Cicero's)  is  that  men  not  only 
try  to  keep  themselves  young,  but  actually  succeed  for  a 
very  long  time  in  doing  so.  In  the  vegetable  world  there 
is  neither  courage,  nor  choice,  nor  effort,  but  only  sub- 
mission. The  plant  is  rooted  in  its  place,  and  can  seek 
no  shelter  against  the  weather,  nor  any  protection  against 
its  enemies,  neither  can  it  strengthen  by  voluntarily  di- 
rected nervous  force  the  resisting  power  of  stalk  or 
branch.  We  are  so  much  accustomed  to  that  old  artifice 


April  —  The  Name  Celandine.  109 

of  the  poets,  so  suitable  to  the  childish  condition  of  the  in- 
tellect, by  which  they  attribute  human  feelings  to  the  oak 
and  reed,  to  rose  and  lily,  that  we  have  a  difficulty  in  realiz- 
ing the  true  nature  of  a  plant's  existence.  And  yet  there 
is  poetry  in  the  truth  also,  as  my  last  quotation  proves. 

The  Lesser  Celandine  attracts  us  by  scattering  a  little 
bright  gold  on  the  earth  so  early  in  the  season,  but  its 
yellow  is  neither  more  modest  nor  more  beautiful  than 
that  of  the  later  flowers  that  Wordsworth  playfully  sacri- 
ficed at  the  shrine  of  his  early  favorite.  It  is  evident, 
however,  that  in  addition  to  its  sweetly-sounding  name, 
the  poet  found  another  attraction  in  the  Lesser  Celandine 
—  the  idea  of  connecting  his  own  fame  with  that  of  the 
flower  permanently,  and  of  conferring  fame  upon  what 
had  been  hitherto  unnoticed  ;  an  idea  that  has  always 
been  pleasing  to  poets,  from  Horace  downwards.  Words- 
worth does  not  appear  to  have  remembered  that  the  name 
which  pleased  him  by  its  music  is  associated  with,  and 
even  derived  from,  the  name  of  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
and  poetical  of  the  birds.  Celandine  is  a  corruption  of 
the  French  chelidoine,  which  in  Italian  is  chelidonia  or 
celidonia,  in  Latin  ckelidonium,  in  Greek  xe\i$6viov,  from 
a  swallow.*  Opinions  differ  as  to  the  reason 


*  The  classical  reader  may  remember  the  beautiful  passage  in 
the  thirteenth  idyl  of  Theocritus,  where  Hylas  goes  down  to  the 
fountain  to  fetch  water  for  the  heroes  who  are  eating.  Several  plants 
are  mentioned  by  name  :  — 

n?p2  ds  dpva  TroMa 

Kvaveov  re  xsXifibviov  ,  ^/loepov  r'  adiavrov, 
Kal  QaKkovra,  oehiva, 


Liddell    and   Scott   suggest    that   wuveov    (which    presents    a    little 


1 10         April —  The  Common  Primrose. 

why  the  Greeks  associated  the  celandine  with  the  swal- 
low ;  some  say  that  it  is  because  the  celandine*  (not 
the  lesser)  comes  when  the  swallows  come,  and  stays 
as  long  as  they  remain  with  us  ;  but  others  affirm  that  it 
is  because  the  swallow  used  the  plant  (in  which  a  caustic 
juice  circulates  like  blood)  to  give  sight  to  her  little 
ones.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the  plant  takes  her  name  from 
the  bird. 


XXII. 

The  Common  Primrose  —  Nooks  where  the  Primrose  grows  —  Etymology 
—  Beauty  of  Primrose  Yellow  —  Cowslip  and  Oxslip  —  Influence  of 
Agriculture  upon  Landscape  —  French  Dislike  to  Solitude  —  Nature 
and  the  Farmers  —  Wheat-fields  in  April  —  A  flowering  Rape-field  — 
Gentians  and  Heather  —  The  Blackthorn  —  Its  Chilling  Effect  — 
Leafless  Oaks. 

A  MUCH  more  delicately  beautiful  flower  is  the 
common  primrose,  but  her  praises  have  been  sung 
so  often  that  it  is  difficult  in  this  century  to  say  any  thing 
of  her  that  can  be  either  new  or  interesting.  Still,  if  we 
can  say  nothing  that  is  new,  there  is  always  a  delightful 
novelty,  not  unpleasantly  mingled  with  half-melancholy 

difficulty,  as  there  is  no  positive  blue  about  the  plant)  may  have 
stood  for  yT&VKov  •  and  this  is  the  more  probable  that  the  under- 
side of  the  leaves  might  be  accurately  described  by  the  latter 
adjective. 

*  The  Figwort  Ranunculus,  which  Wordsworth  wrote  about,  has 
scarcely  any  thing  in  common  with  the  true  Celandine  but  the  color 
and  the  name.  The  two  plants  do  not  even  belong  to  the  same 
family  botanically.  The  figwort  belongs  to  the  Ranunculacea,  and 
the  true  celandine  to  the  Papaveracecc. 


April —  Beauty  of  Primrose  Yellow.      1 1 1 

reminiscences  of  by-gone  years,  in  the  sensation  of 
meeting  with  primroses  for  the  first  time  in  the  spring, 
especially  if  they  happen  to  be  in  great  rich  clusters,  in 
some  corner  where  we  come  upon  them  unexpectedly. 
There  are  several  nooks  in  the  Val  Ste.  Veronique  which 
the  primroses  have  elected  for  their  homes,  particularly 
one .  place  between  the  rivulet  and  a  great  wild  cherry- 
tree,  where  there  must  be  two  or  three  thousand  of  these 
flowers.  Primaveris,  first  of  the  spring,  primevtre,  and 
first  not  only  in  the  sense  that  it  is  earliest,  but  first  also 
jn  the  perfection  of  its  loveliness,  if  you  think  only  of 
the  delicate  corolla,  and  not  of  the  great  coarse  leaves, 
which  seem  as  if  they  had  been  put  there  for  nothing  but 
to  make  us  feel  the  exquisiteness  of  the  pale  corolla 
more  completely.  That  corolla  is  the  perfection  of 
Nature's  yellow,  for  it  shows  all  the  delicacy  the  color 
is  capable  of;  and  if  you  seek  that  coloring  elsewhere, 
you  need  not  look  for  it  on  the  earth,  but  may  haply  find 
it  once  in  a  twelvemonth  in  the  purity  of  the  clear  heaven 
after  sunset.  The  bees  are  glad  when  the  primroses 
bloom  in  the  grassy  hollows,  and  they  come  tO'them  from 
far,  well  knowing  that  there  is  honey  down  in  the  tube 
of  the  one  soft  beautiful  petal.  And  whilst  the  primroses 
live  in  great  companies  in  the  shady  places  that  suit  them 
best,  the  cowslip  and  oxslip,  their  very  near  relations,  live 
out  in  the  meadows  and  pastures,  over  which  also  the 
bees  range  at  this  time  very  busily. 

The  influence  of  agriculture  upon  landscape  is  one 
of  those  questions  which  force  themselves  irresistibly 
upon  our  attention  when  we  think  about  art  and  Nature. 


1 1 2       April —  French  Dislike  to  Solitude. 

There  are  two  quite  opposite  schools  amongst  artists  and 
poets  in  reference  to  this  rather  difficult  and  complicated 
subject.  Constable  was  entirely  on  the  side  of  agricul- 
ture, and  plainly  said  that  he  liked  the  fields  the  farmers 
worked  in,  and  the  work  they  did  in  them  ;  in  short,  the 
Nature  that  Constable  loved  best  was  Nature  modified 
by  man,  and  so  he  painted  a  well-cultivated  country 
with  villages  and  mills,  and  village-steeples  seen  over  the 
hedges  and  between  the  permitted  trees.  This  feeling 
about  Nature  is  a  very  common  one  in  France,  where 
people  will  often  tell  you  that  such  a  place  '  is  delightful 
for  its  scenery  —  you  can  count  the  steeples  of  eight  vil- 
lages, and  you  cannot  drive  two  miles  in  any  direction 
without  passing  either  a  village  or  a  country-house.'  The 
essence  of  this  feeling  is  the  dislike  to  solitude,  and  a 
sense  of  oppression  when  not  relieved  either  by  the  com- 
panionship of  man  or  by  visible  evidence  of  his  presence. 
On  the  other  hand  there  have  been  several  modern  land- 
scape-painters, and  a  few  writers,  who  believe  in  wild 
Nature  as  an  article  of  faith,  being  persuaded  that  nothing 
that  occurs  in  '  unspoiled  Nature '  can  by  any  possibility 
be  defective  from  the  artistic  point  of  view  —  a  dogma 
of  natural  religion  which  is  seductive  by  reason  of  its 
simplicity,  and  because  it  offers  what  man  so  much  de- 
sires, an  infallible  authority  and  guide.  But  supposing 
that  a  thinker  were  to  approach  this  subject  armed  with 
a  good  deal  of  artistic  taste  and  experience,  yet  not  in 
the  least  inclined  to  pin  his  faith  to  any  absolute  dogma 
on  one  side  or  the  other,  what  would  he  be  likely  to 
decide  ?  He  would  say  most  probably  that  both  Nature 


April —  Wheat-fields  in  April.  1 1 3 

and  the  farmers  often  made  arrangements  which  might 
be  good  and  reasonable  on  the  solid  earth  that  we  in- 
habit, but  which,  for  the  clearest  artistic  reasons,  would 
be  perfectly  intolerable  in  a  picture ;  and  such  an  opinion 
would  be  compatible  with  the  profoundest  reverence  for 
the  Divine  arrangements,  and  a  sincere  respect  for  the 
useful  work  of  agriculture.  The  material  world  was  not 
made  exclusively  for  the  purpose  of  being  painted ;  it 
has  other  uses,  and  there  may  be  some  incompatibility 
between  those  other  uses  and  the  exigencies  of  artistic 
color  or  composition.  Who  would  venture  to  paint  a 
wheat-field  at  the  beginning  of  April  ?  Its  intense  crude 
green  may  be  in  itself  agreeable  as  a  refreshing  change 
after  the  grays  and  browns  of  winter,  but  it  harmonizes 
with  nothing  else  in  the  landscape,  and  the  quantity  of 
it  is  unmanageably  great  for  a  color  of  such  intensity. 
And  if  a  wheat-field  is  too  dangerous  to  be  thought  of, 
what  shall  we  say  to  such  a  blinding  phenomenon  as  a 
flowering  field  of  rape  ?  The  difference  between  color 
and  colors  could  not  be  more  vividly  illustrated.  In  the 
artistic  sense  the  rape  is  devoid  of  color,  though  it  is  of 
the  most  glaring  yellow,  and  a  patch  of  it  on  a  hillside 
flares  over  leagues  of  landscape.  Not  only  ought  artists 
to  avoid  painting  crudities  of  this  kind,  but  they  ought 
even  to  avoid  looking' at  them.  It  is  enough  to  paralyze 
any  delicate  color-faculty  to  live  near  a  flowering  rape- 
field,  at  least  so  long  as  the  abomination  lasts.  The 
balance  of  color  in  the  entire  landscape  is  destroyed  by 
it,  and  the  eye  is  rendered  insensible  to  modulation. 
There  are  times  when  even  wild  plants  may  be  a  danger 

8 


H4  April — The  Blackthorn. 

to  the  general  harmony,  but  a  belt  of  azure  from  the 
gentians  on  an  Alp,  or  a  large  patch  of  rather  crudely 
purple  heather  on  the  flank  of  a  Scottish  mountain,  has 
always  the  great  advantage  of  irregularity  about  its  edges, 
which  also  lose  themselves  with  more  or  less  of  grada- 
tion in  the  vegetation  round  about.  The  rape-field,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  as  obtrusive  from  the  mathematical 
definition  of  its  outline  as  from  its  insupportable  intensity 
of  hue. 

The  spring  of  the  year,  like  the  adolescence  of  the 
mind,  is  especially  the  time  of  crudities.  May  I  venture 
to  observe  that  even  the  blackthorn,  which  the  poets 
have  sung  with  affection,  is  at  this  time  rather  a  crudity 
also,  and  not  very  much  better,  from  the  colorist's  point 
of  view,  than  snow  on  the  hedges  in  winter  ?  Of  course, 
if  you  go  close  up  to  the  flowers,  and  look  at  them  as  a 
lady  does  at  her  bouquet,  you  will  perceive  the  yellow  of 
anthers  and  green  of  calyx,  but  these  have  little  effect  at 
a  distance,  and  we  feel  the  need  of  leaves.  It  is  curious 
how  far  a  flowering  shrub  can  make  us  feel  its  impor- 
tance, for  good  or  evil,  in  the  landscape.  A  single  black- 
thorn can  chill  the  edge  of  a  forest,  and  this  is  the  easier 
that  the  forest,  being  as  yet  leafless,  has  a  wintry  look  in 
contradiction  to  the  genial  weather.  A  forest  of  oak  is 
even  more  leafless  now  than  in  the  month  of  January. 
The  smaller  oaks  will  retain  the  mass  of  their  dead 
leaves,  but  -the  larger  ones,  being  more  exposed  to  the 
wind,  will  have  lost  the  greater  part  of  theirs,  leaving  a 
few  only  in  the  light  sprays,  which  catch  the  sunshine 
as  specks  of  ruddy  gold. 


April —  The  Cherry-tree.  1 1 5 


XXIII. 

Cherry-tree  —  Aspen  Poplar  —  Stem  of  the  Birch  — Birch  trunks  in  Sun- 
shine—  Young  Beech  —  Birch  against  the  heavenly  Azure  —  Young 
leaves  of  Horse-chestnut  —  Their  apparent  newness  —  Dried  old 
Leaves  —  Old  Scales — Their  ornamental  Utility  —  Dry  Oak  Foliage 
—  Last  Year's  Leaves  of  Bramble  —  Their  rich  Coloring — Principle 
of  Coloring  in  good  Glass  and  Oil  Painting  —  Deathly  Opacity  —  Vig- 
orous advance  of  many  Plants  —  Nettles  —  Great  Mullein  —  Arum  — 
Meadow  Bittercress  —  Its  Constellations  —  Marsh  Marigold  —  Creep- 
ing Bugle —  Small-flowered  Calamint — Broom  in  Flower  —  Broom 
Yellow  —  Prudence  in  Art  —  Criticism  of  Nature  —  Fanatical  Oppo- 
sition to  it —  Artistic  and  Natural  Color  —  The  Materials  of  Art  in 
Nature. 

AMONGST  the  wild  forest-trees  in  the  Val  Ste. 
Veronique  one  of  the  finest  is  the  cherry-tree, 
which  is  believed  to  be  indigenous  here,  and  as  the  soil 
and  climate  are  most  favorable  to  it,  grows  to  such  a 
size  that  it  may  almost,  in  that  respect,  claim  equality 
with  the  oak  and  the  beech.  At  the  end  of  the  first 
week  in  April  the  wild  cherry-trees  are  all  in  full  bloom. 
At  a  distance  of  fifty  yards  the  flowers  so  entirely 
eclipse  the  leaves  that  the  latter  are  invisible,  but  the 
young  leaves  take  their  place  beautifully  when  you  are 
close  at  hand,  not  only  for  their  form  (the  cherry-leaf 
is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  all  leaves  for  a  good 
designer),  but  for  their  color  also,  which  is  not  crude, 
as  young  leafage  generally  is,  but  enriched  with  a  red- 
dish brown.  There  is  one  huge  old  cherry-tree  just  out- 
side the  wood,  with  plenty  of  space  for  growth,  and  a 


n6  April — Aspen  Poplar. 

quite  congenial  situation.  It  is  a  great  world  of  flowers, 
and  the  bees  are  constantly  going  and  coming  between 
it  and  their  hives.  Not  only  what  are  popularly  called 
flowers  may  produce  an  effect,  but  even  the  less  generally 
admired  catkins  may  under  certain  circumstances  acquire 
pictorial  importance.  One  of  the  finest  sights  at  the 
beginning  of  April  is  a  tall  aspen  poplar  in  full  morning 
sunshine,  with  its  thousands  of  pendent  catkins,  which 
at  a  little  distance  take  a  rich  dark  crimson  tint,  and 
strikingly  contrast  with  the  light  gray  stem  and  branches. 
But  the  stem  of  the  aspen  is  not  to  be  compared  with 
that  of  the  silvery  birch,  which  is  one  of  the  master- 
pieces of  Nature.  Every  thing  has  been  done  to  heighten 
its  unrivalled  brilliance.  The  horizontal  peeling  of  the 
bark,  making  dark  rings  at  irregular  distances,  the  brown 
spots,  the  dark  color  of  the  small  twigs,  the  rough  text- 
ure near  the  ground,  and  the  exquisite  silky  smoothness 
of  the  tight  white  bands  above,  offer  exactly  that  variety 
of  contrast  which  makes  us  feel  a  rare  quality  like  that 
smooth  whiteness  as  strongly  as  we  are  capable  of  feeling 
it.  And  amongst  the  common  effects  to  be  seen  in  all 
northern  countries,  one  of  the  most  brilliant  is  the  oppo- 
sition of  birch  trunks  in  sunshine  against  the  deep  blue 
or  purple  of  a  mountain  distance  in  shadow.  At  all 
seasons  of  the  year  the  beauty  of  the  birch  is  attractive, 
and  peculiarly  its  own.  The  young  beech  may  remind 
you  of  it  occasionally  under  strong  effects  of  light,  and 
is  also  very  graceful,  but  we  have  no  tree  that  rivals  the 
birch  in  its  own  qualities  of  color  and  form,  still  less 
in  that  air  and  bearing  which  are  so  much  more  difficult 


April —  Young  Leaves  of  Horse-chestnut.    1 1 7 

to  describe.  In  winter  you  see  the  full  delicacy  of  the 
sprays  that  the  lightest  foliage  hides,  and  in  early  spring 
this  tree  clothes  itself,  next  after  the  willow,  with  tiny 
triangular  leaves,  inexpressibly  light  in  the  mass,  so  that 
from  a  distance  they  have  the  effect  of  a  green  mist 
rather  than  any  thing  more  material.  When  the  tree  is 
isolated  sufficiently  to  come  against  the  sky,  you  may 
see  one  of  the  prettiest  sights  in  Nature,  the  pure  deep 
azure  of  heaven  with  the  silvery  white  and  fresh  green  of 
the  birch  in  opposition.  And  yet  it  is  not  a  crude  green, 
for  there  is  a  great  deal  of  warm  red  in  it,  which  gives 
one  of  those  precious  tertiaries  that  all  true  colorists 
value. 

No  young  leaves  are  more  interesting  than  those  of 
the  horse-chestnut,  which  every  lover  of  Nature  who 
passes  the  spring  in  the  country  must  have  watched 
daily  in  April,  if  the  tree  happened  to  grow  within  a 
little  distance  of  his  residence.  When  they  get  fairly 
out  of  the  cotton,  in  which  they  have  been  so  snugly 
protected  against  the  severities  of  the  early  season,  they 
first  hang  straight  down  in  the  most  languid  manner, 
and  it  is  only  after  many  days  that  they  begin  to  spread 
themselves  in  the  air  like  the  fingers  of  an  extended 
hand.  No  leaf  but  that  of  the  beech  looks  newer  than 
the  young  horse-chestnut.  There  is  a  great  difference 
amongst  trees  in  this  respect,  for  some  young  leaves 
have  a  very  old  look  indeed,  and  might  be  taken  by  a 
half-observant  person  for  remnants  of  the  later  year; 
but  when  the  horse-chestnut  leaf  is  young,  it  has  that 
air  of  newness  which  is  seen  in  human  work  that  has 


n8  April — Dried  Old  Leaves. 

just  left  the  hands  of  the  workman.  The  impression  is 
much  increased  by  the  quantities  of  leaves  from  the  pre- 
ceding year,  which  will  generally  be  found  on  the  earth 
beneath,  for  the  horse-chestnut  leaf  is  very  durable,  and 
retains  its  shape  and  substance  long  after  it  is  dead  and 
sapless.  Painters  are  not  generally  very  partial  to  this 
tree,  because  the  size  of  the  leaf  and  the  definition  of 
its  forms  require  more  accurate  drawing  than  can  be 
easily  made  compatible  with  the  mystery  that  landscape- 
painters  desire ;  but  from  the  opening  of  the  leaf-bud 
to  the  ripening  of  the  fruit  the  end  of  a  horse-chestnut 
twig  presents  a  constant  succession  of  interesting  models 
for  a  designer  of  ornaments.  Even  such  a  detail  as  the 
position  of  the  old  scales,  which  remain  after  the  accom- 
plishment of  their  especial  protective  function,  is  of  im- 
portance from  the  ornamental  point  of  view,  as  one 
soon  discovers  after  carefully  drawing  the  extremity  of 
a  twig  in  full  detail,  when  the  leaflets  are  still  hanging 
together  vertically,  or  just  gaining  strength  enough  to 
begin  to  spread  themselves,  and  the  scales  decorate  the 
point  from  which  all  this  new  vegetation  has  issued, 
making  the  separation  between  the  old  woody  twig  and 
the  fresh  green  leaf-stalks  of  the  present  year. 

How  long  the  coloring  of  foregrounds  is  affected  by 
the  remains  of  the  previous  season  !  and  what  aston- 
ishing contrasts  are  produced  by  this  juxtaposition  of 
death  and  birth !  All  along  the  sides  of  the  April 
woods  you  may  see  the  red  of  the  dry  oak  foliage 
close  to  the  fresh  green  of  the  willow  and  the  white  of 
the  blackthorn,  three  colors  as  distinct  as  possible ; 


April — Leaves  of  Bramble.  119 

whilst  in  the  nearest  foregrounds  the  last  year's  leaves 
of  the  bramble  are  still  visibly  an  element  in  the  land- 
scape, with  their  stains  of  red  and  passages  of  russet  and 
dark  green.  Sometimes  you  may  get  a  few  such  leaves 
between  you  and  the  morning  sunshine,  and  then,  if  the 
coloring  of  them  happen  to  be  favorable,  you  will  see 
that  which  in  all  wild  Nature  comes  nearest  to  the  effect 
of  a  painted  window.  The  middle  of  the  leaflet  will 
probably  still  retain  some  of  the  original  green  coloring 
matter  (being  nearest  to  the  midrib  from  which  the  sap 
was  supplied),  and  its  edges  will  be  quite  brown  and 
dead  ;  but  between  these  there  will  be  gradations  from 
light  crimson  to  deep  purple,  precisely  of  that  quality 
which  Jean  Cousin  and  his  school  successfully  tried  for 
in  their  glass-painting  —  that  is,  color  intensified  to  the 
utmost  by  light  unequally  transmitted.  The  same  prin- 
ciple is  well  known  also  to  oil-painters,  and  can  be  (by 
means  of  glazing)  to  a  great  extent  acted  upon  in  their 
art,  though  not  so  strikingly  as  in  glass-painting.  When 
this  principle  is  absolutely  neglected  or  ignored,  as  it  is 
in  vulgar  stained  glass,  in  which  a  flat  pane  of  blue  is 
put  by  the  side  of  other  flat  little  panes  of  yellow  or  red, 
the  color  is  never  really  luminous,  nor  can  it  be.* 

Besides   the  jewels   of    transparence,  last   year  has 
bequeathed  to  us  much  deathly  opacity,  which  lingers 

*  It  does  not  follow,  however,  that  to  obtain  luminous  quality 
in  color  each  piece  of  glass  should  necessarily  have  a  gradation 
painted  upon  it.  Luminous  quality  may  also  be  obtained  by  the 
graduated  arrangement  of  small  fragments,  which,  taken  separately, 
had  no  gradation  \  in  a  word,  by  glass  arranged  on  the  principle  of 
mosaic. 


1 20  April — Nettles. 

only  too  long  in  the  spring  landscape.     There  are  great 
quantities  of  dead  light-brown  rushes,  which  for  my  part 
I  am  weary  of,  and  should   like  to  see   hidden  away 
under  fresher  and  greener  growths.     It  is  consoling  that 
so  many  plants  come  vigorously  forward  at  this  season. 
The  enormous  roots  of  the  bryony,  hidden  away  in  so 
many  places  where   no    one   suspects   their   existence 
begin  to  prove  their  vigor  by  sending  forth  a  few  green 
leaves,  which  give  promise  of  graceful  festoons.     Nettles 
are  growing  in  great  abundance  under  the  hedges,  which 
they  border  with  a  fresh  and  beautiful  green  ;  and  many 
wild    places    are   adorned   with   the   richer   and   better 
coloring   of   the   ground    ivy,    which    the    peasants    in 
France,  I  know  not  wherefore,  have  chosen  to  dedicate 
to  St.  John.     The  great  mullein  sprouts  handsomely  in 
April,  with   his  fine  large  cottony  leaves,  and  it  is  a 
pleasure  to  meet  with  him  again  when  we  remember 
his  summer   grandeur.     Contemporary  with  the   great 
mullein,  the   barbed   leaves   of   the   arum,  smooth  and 
glistening,   with    their   irregular   spots   of    dark,    grow 
quickly   in    their   shady  retreats.     By   the   streams    no 
April-flowering  plant  is  prettier  than  the  meadow  bitter- 
cress,  and    I    know  some   places  where   it   clusters   in 
splendid  constellations  that  bend  over   the  water,  and 
are  reflected  on  it 

*  Like  stars  on  the  sea 
When  the  blue  wave  rolls  nightly  on  deep  Galilee.' 

The  flowers  being  of  the  purest  possible  white,  or  else 
just  delicately  tinted  with  pinkish  purple,  show  strongly 
in  the  evening  when  the  first  approaches  of  twilight  have 


April — Broom  in  Flower.  121 

darkened  the  damp  recesses  behind  them.  You  will 
find,  too,  in  similar  situations,  the  marsh  marigold,  often 
in  the  most  splendid  abundance,  making  a  rich  yellow 
foreground  color,  and  those  more  modest  little  plants, 
the  creeping  bugle  and  the  small-flowered  calamint,  both 
which  are  good  and  agreeable  in  hue,  and  some  places 
are  known  to  me  where  the  small  purple  flowers  of  the 
calamint  are  sufficiently  powerful  from  their  quantity 
to  deserve  the  attention  of  a  painter. 

I  suppose  that  no  prudent  artist  would  undertake  to 
paint  a  field  of  broom  in  full  flower,  as  we  see  them 
towards  the  end  of  April.  The  broom  is  certainly  less 
objectionable  than  a  field  of  flowering  rape,  for  the 
yellow  is  more  supportable  and  not  so  unmixed  with 
green  ;  besides,  the  green  is  much  richer  and  darker 
than  that  of  the  rape  plant,  even  if  the  latter  were 
visible  ;  but  the  broom  yellow  is  too  powerful  to  be 
acceptable  in  landscape-painting  unless  in  very  moderate 
quantity.  It  is  conceivable  that  an  artist  might  admit  a 
broom  amongst  other  plants  in  his  foreground,  but  only 
with  the  greatest  care  and  moderation  as  to  the  painting 
of  its  flowers  ;  and  in  saying  this  I  do  not  wish  to  main- 
tain the  authority  of  the  brown  masters,  but  that  of 
sober  and  right  judgment,  which  in  art,  as  in  other 
matters,  must  always  predominate  in  the  end.  When- 
ever an  artist  admits  any  glaring  and  positive  color 
in  quantity  relatively  great,  he  incurs  the  risk  of  not 
being  able  to  harmonize  it  with  the  quieter  hues  of 
which  the  rest  of  his  picture  is  composed  ;  and  I  may 
add  that  Nature  herself,  from  the  artistic  point  of  view, 


122  April — Criticism  of  Nature. 

does  not  always  succeed  in  doing  so.  I  have  met  with 
people  who  consider  any  criticism  of  Nature  as  a  sort 
of  heresy,  who,  having  adopted  the  theory  that  Nature 
is  infallible,  will  not  listen  to  any  reasoning  on  the  sub- 
ject, and  tell  you  that  a  field  of  cabbages  is  a  finer  sight 
than  a  gallery  of  masterpieces  in  painting  ;  but  if  such 
persons  could  understand  what  art  is  they  would  aban- 
don this  fanaticism.  All  who  have  practised  art  are 
well  aware  that  natural  composition,  though  a  suggestion 
of  artistic  composition,  is  never  quite  good  of  itself,  and 
has  always  to  be  altered  by  the  artist ;  and  why  should 
Nature  be  more  artistic  in  her  color  ?  I  believe  the 
truth  to  be,  that  artistic  color  is  as  far  removed  from 
natural  color  as  artistic  composition  is  from  natural 
composition,  and  that  it  will  be  found  on  investigation 
impossible  to  produce  what  artists  call  fine  color  by 
the  simple  copyism  of  Nature.  It  has  been  a  vulgar 
error  of  the  uneducated,  whether  practically  painters  or 
not,  to  imagine  that  things  in  Nature  were  suitable  for 
painting  which  in  fact  were  altogether  outside  its  prov- 
ince, to  believe  that  they  had  only  to  paint  whatever 
struck  their  fancy  out-of-doors,  and  that  toute  verit<*  was 
bonne  d  dire.  There  could  not  be  a  greater  mistake.  It  is 
true  that  Art  finds  her  materials  in  nature,  but  she  chooses 
them  as  we  choose  mushrooms  for  the  table,  and  if  she 
were  not  careful  in  her  selection  it  would  be  at  her  own 
great  peril.  And  even  when  the  material  has  been  judi- 
ciously chosen  it  is  only  raw  material  still,  but  the  finished 
work  of  art  is  material  that  has  been  both  modified  and  re- 
organized by  human  taste,  intelligence,  and  invention. 


May  —  Early  Rising.  123 


XXIV. 

Early  Rising  —  Not  a  virtue,  but  a  Compensation  —  Chaucer's  Early  Ris- 
ing—  His  passionate  Love  of  Daisies  —  Chaucer's  way  of  observing 
Nature  —  How  Etymology  may  be  Poetical. 

IF  early  rising  were  so  much  of  a  virtue  as  its  practi- 
tioners generally  assume,  then  indeed,  in  this  respect 
at  least,  should  we  be  eminently  virtuous  in  the  Val  Ste. 
Veronique.  We  are  all  of  us  up  and  stirring  before  the 
dawn,  not  for  any  particularly  laudable  passion  for  an 
ideally  perfect  life,  but  in  the  case  of  the  poor  peasants 
and  servants  who  surround  us  from  immemorial  tradi- 
tion simply,  and  the  daily  necessities  of  existence ;  and 
in  my  own  case  from  taste  and  choice,  and  the  love  of  a 
kind  of  pleasure  which  is  blameless,  and  no  more.  In- 
deed, I  think  that  early  rising  is  not  so  much  a  virtue 
in  people  who  live  in  the  country  as  one  of  the  many 
pleasant  compensations  of  their  existence.  They  can- 
not go  to  the  opera  in  the  evening,  and  they  miss  a 
hundred  delights  and  advantages  of  great  cities  ;  but 
they  have  certain  pleasures  of  their  own  which  it  is  wise 
to  enjoy  to  the  utmost,  and  early  rising  is  one  of  them. 
We  had  kept  late  hours  at  Paris,  as  every  one  must 
who  lives  with  and  in  the  life  of  a  great  capital ;  but 
here  in  the  Val  Ste.  Ve"ronique  we  followed  the  life  of 
Nature. 


1 24  May  —  Chaucer. 

Of  all  early  risers  that  ever  witnessed  the  beautiful 
Aurora,  surely  old  Chaucer  was  the  happiest,  and  the 
most  keenly  conscious  of  his  happiness.  What  seemed 
to  him  sweetest  and  purest  of  pleasant  hours  was  that 
cool,  calm  hour  of  the  early  morning,  at  the  beginning 
of  the  dawn,  when  having  put  on  his  'gear  and  his 
array'  he  walked  forth  into  the  fields  and  woods  with 
the  serenest  cheerfulness  in  all  his  well-tuned  feelings. 
If  it  is  true  that  Nature  with  all  her  beauty  is  mere 
desolation  until  reflected  in  the  eyes  and  soul  of  man, 
then  there  must  be  gradations  in  the  beauty  of  the 
image  according  to  the  brightness  or  imperfection  of 
the  living  mirror;  and  if  so,  how  fortunate  were  those 
dawns,  and  those  dewy  fields  and  flowers,  that  were  in 
the  deep,  clear,  happy,  poet-soul  of  Chaucer !  If  it  were 
possible  to  go  back  into  the  past,  and  enjoy  the  com- 
panionship of  the  illustrious  dead,  I  should  like  two 
things  most  of  all  —  a  drinking-bout  with  Socrates  (not 
for  the  wine's  sake)  and  a  very  early  walk  in  the  morn- 
ing with  Dan  Chaucer,  yet  not  perhaps  on  the  morning 
immediately  following  the  before-mentioned  Athenian 
symposium :  — 

*  Wherefore  I  mervaile  greatly  of  my  selfe 
That  I  so  long  withouten  sleepe  lay, 
And  up  I  rose  three  houres  after  twelfe, 
About  the  springen  of  the  day ; 
And  on  I  put  my  gear  and  mine  array, 
And  to  a  pleasant  grove  I  gan  passe 
Long  er  the  bright  Sonne  up  risen  was/ 

Such  was  Chaucer's  way  in  the  pleasant  spring-time, 


May  —  His  Love  of  Daisies.  125 

especially  when  he  could  count  upon  seeing  plenty  of 
daisies,  the  flower  he  loved  before  all  others. 

*  Of  all  the  floures  in  the  mede 
Than  love  I  most  these  floures  white  and  rede, 
Soch  that  men  callen  daisies  in  our  town ; 
To  hem  I  have  so  great  affection, 
As  I  said  erst,  whan  comen  is  the  May, 
That  in  my  bed  there  daweth  me  no  day 
That  I  nam  up  and  walking  in  the  mede, 
To  see  this  floure  ayenst  the  Sunne  sprede, 
Whan  it  upriseth  early  by  the  morow 
That  blissful  sight  softeneth  all  my  sorow.' 

In  some  verses  that  follow  soon  after  these  we  have 
an  account  of  the  poet's  own  way  of  observing  Nature  ; 
and  notwithstanding  the  intensity  of  the  modern  passion 
for  natural  beauty,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  there 
exists  in  any  writer  of  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth 
centuries  any  passage  so  full  of  the  true  feeling  as 
this  is :  — 

'  My  busie  gost,  that  thirsteth  alway  newe 
To  seen  this  flower  so  yong,  so  fresh  of  hewe, 
Constrained  me,  with  so  greedy  desire, 
That  in  my  herte  I  fele  yet  the  fire 
That  made  me  rise  ere  it  were  day, 
And  this  was  now  the  first  morow  of  May, 
With  dreadfull  herte,  and  glad  devotion 
For  to  been  at  the  resurrection 
Of  this  floure,  whan  that  it  should  unclose 
Again  the  Sunne  that  rose  as  redd  as  rose, 
And  downe  on  knees  anon  right  I  me  sette  ; 
And  as  I  could  this  fresh  floure  I  grette, 
Kneeling  alway,  till  it  unclosed  was 


126     May  —  Hoiv  Etymology  may  be  Poetical. 

Upon  the  small,  soft,  swete  gras, 

That  was  with  floures  swete  embroidered  all. 

•  *'-##'.         t 

In  which  methought  I  might  day  by  day 
Dwellen  alway,  the  joly  month  of  May, 
Withouten  sleepe,  withouten  meat  or  drinke. 
Adownfull  softly  I  gan  to  sinke. 
And  leaning  on  my  elbow  and  my  side, 
The  long  day  I  shope  me  for  to  abide 
Fqr  nothing  els,  and  I  shall  not  lie 
But  for  to  look  upon  the  daisie, 
-That  well  by  reason  men  it  call  may 
The  daisie,  or  els  the  eye  of  the  day.' 

Who  shall  say,  after  this,  that  etymology  may  not  be 
poetical,  since  Chaucer  teaches  it  us  in  his  own  sweet, 
unpedantic  way  ?  If  he  loved  the  daisy  for  itself,  he 
loved  it  also  for  its  association  with  the  day,  and  liked 
to  see  in  it  the  opening  of  the  dawn.  So,  too.,  the  French 
marguerite  has  its  own  beautiful  origin.  In  the  Latin 
Bible  margarita  is  the  word  for  pearl,  from  the  Greek 
fjuapyaplrr)?;  and  Littre"  thinks  that  the  Greek  word  in 
its  turn  comes  from  the  Persian  word  mervarid,  which 
means  pearl  also.  So  here  we  are  again  en  pleine  po/sie, 
and  just  as  Chaucer's  English  derivation  may  be  ex- 
plained in  verse  without  lowering  its  tone,  the  origin  of 
the  French  word  might  be  prettily  dwelt  upon  by  any 
French  poet  who  chose  to  write  about  the  flower. 
Shelley,  indeed,  though  an  Englishman,  having  in  his 
mind  very  probably  the  beautiful  Greek  association,  uses 
it  as  an  epithet,  — 

'  Daisies,  those  pearled  Arcturi  of  the  earth.' 


May  —  Starwort.  127 


XXV. 

Starwort  —  Stalk  of  Starwort  —  Composed  and  Simple  Flowers  —  The 
Water  Ranunculus — The  Gardener's  hatred  of  it  —  Its  Beauty  — 
Minute  Study  of  Vegetation  for  Landscape-painters  —  The  Sheep- 
sorrel  Dock —  Its  hot  Color  in  May  —  Important  in  Landscape  — 
Warm  rich  Color  of  Oak  Leaves  in  May  —  May  Landscape  more 
harmonious  than  that  of  April  —  Brooms  and  Bugles  —  The  chief 
Colors  of  May  —  Chaucer's  White  and  Green  —  The  Lily  of  the  Val- 
ley— Perfection  of  the  Lily  of  the  Valley — The  Golden  Water  — 
Fabled  Remedies  —  The  Potentilla  —  Lung- wort  —  Unscientific  Rea- 
soning. 

SHELLEY'S  allusion  to  constellations  reminds  one 
of  a  flower,  or  family  of  flowers,  to  be  seen  in  the 
very  greatest  profusion  in  the  beginning  of  May,  and 
which  have  certainly  much  more  the  effect  of  stars  upon 
the  earth  than  daisies  ever  have.  Everybody  seems  to 
have  been  struck  by  this,  as  the  name  implies,  stellaria, 
stai"wort,  stellaire.  It  seems  almost  a  crime  to  compare 
any  thing  with  the  daisy  to  its  disadvantage,  and  yet  so 
far  as  mere  appearance  goes  the  starworts  are  greatly 
superior.  In  quantity  they  may  often  be  found,  like  the 
stars  in  a  clear  sky,  by  myriads,  their  brilliant  white- 
ness illuminating  the  shadiest  places  ;  and  if  you  come 
near  enough  to  see  the  individual  plants,  if  you  lean  on 
your  elbow  and  your  side,  as  Chaucer  did  when  he 
.studied  daisies,  then  are  you  rewarded  by  the  beauty 
of  one  of  the  most  graceful  amongst  the  lighter  vege- 
table forms.  The  light  green  stems  are  elegant  beyond 
the  common  grace  of  Nature,  and  there  is  much  delicate 
curving  in  the  slender  pedicels.  The  whole  stalk  is  but 


128     May  —  Composed  and  Simple  Flowers. 

just  barely  strong  enough  to  support  the  narrow  lanceo- 
late leaves,  and  the  thin,  all  but  imponderable  petals. 
I  confess,  too,  that  I  feel,  a  certain  reasonable  preference 
for  plants  that  carry  well-cut  leaves  in  the  air  to  those 
other  plants  which,  like  the  daisy,  have  what  botanists 
call  radical  leaves,  that  never  get  much  above  the  root, 
and  lie  for  the  most  part  helplessly,  making  only  a 
sort  of  leaf-pattern  on  the  green  carpet  of  the  earth. 
Finally,  notwithstanding  my  love  and  reverence  for 
Chaucer,  and  all  the  dear  associations  that  we  have 
with  the  unpretending  daisy,  it  seems  to  me  that,  when 
we  know  enough  of  botany  for  ideas  of  structure  to  be 
inextricably  bound  up  with  our  conceptions,  a  composed 
flower,  or  congeries  of  flowers  like  the  daisy,  must  always 
seem  to  have  much  less  individuality  than  a  simple 
flower  like  the  starwort ;  and  it  seems  easier  to  me  to 
fall  in  love  with  an  object  that  is  clearly  individual  than 
with  a  collection  of  objects  such  as  the  florets  of  the 
composites.  This  may  be  fanciful,  but  there  is  always  a 
great  element  of  the  fanciful  in  these  things  ;  and  it  is 
highly  probable  that  Chaucer  loved  his  favorite  all  the 
better  for  not  being  aware  that  what  he  thought  of  as 
a  flower  was,  in  reality,  a  sort  of  floral  village,  perched 
on  the  top  of  a  stalk. 

If  the  starwort  looks  like  constellations  on  the  land, 
the  water  ranunculus  covers  at  the  same  season  the 
shallow  streams  and  ponds  where  it  has  fixed  itself  with 
other  constellations  of  its  own.  Early  in  the  year  its 
wavy  hair  of  green  is  wonderfully  lustrous  in  the  rapid, 
limpid  water :  but  that  green,  the  most  beautiful  of  all 


May — -The  Water  Ranunculus.          129 

greens  in  the  world,  has  now  become  very  dull  ;  yet  out 
of  its  dulness  springs  a  novel  life  and  beauty,  as  the 
plant  no  longer  limits  itself  to  its  old  subaqueous  fila- 
ments, but  sends  forth  leaves  to  float  on  the  surface  in 
the  sunshine,  and  covers  the  water  with  white  blossom. 
I  find  that  people  who  see  Nature  from  the  gardener's 
point  of  view  have  a  hatred  and  horror  of  this  plant, 
because  it  is  very  prolific  and  persistent,  and  invades 
little  streams  and  ponds  very  rapidly  when  once  it  has 
got  a  footing  there  ;  but  for  my  part  I  feel  very  grateful 
to  it  for  two  quite  distinct  kinds  of  beauty :  first  and 
above  all,  for  the  lovely,  intense  green  of  the  moving 
filaments  in  February  and  March,  and  afterwards  for 
the  gayety  of  its  prodigally  abundant  afflorescence. 

There  is  a  common  belief  amongst  landscape-painters 
that  the  minute  study  of  vegetation  is  a  waste  of  time, 
and  even  a  snare  for  them,  impeding  their  broader  and 
more  comprehensive  observation  of  natural  appearances. 
It  is  certainly  true  that  any  artist  who  studied  too  much 
from  the  botanical  point  of  view  would  be  likely  to  lose 
himself  in  unnecessary  detail,  but  it  may  be  shown  very 
easily  that  a  very  minute  detail  may  become  of  immense 
importance  when  multiplied,  as*Nature  often  multiplies 
it,  by  millions.  One  of  the  best  instances  of  this  amongst 
very  familiar  plants  is  that  humble  little  member  of  the 
Polygonum  family,  the  sheep-sorrel  dock.  Its  flowers 
are  so  small,  that  one  of  them,  taken  separately,  is  a 
mere  unintelligible  speck,  until  you  apply  the  microscope 
to  it ;  and  yet  with  these  little  specks  will  Nature  stipple 
and  color  vast  spaces  of  landscape.  The  flower  is  red- 

9 


1 30  May  —  Oak  Leaves  in  May. 

dish  or  greenish,  and  it  often  turns  so  red  that  whole 
fields  and  hill-sides  are  painted  with  it  early  in  May,  — 
painted  a  deep,  rich,  hot  color,  of  the  sort  which  peo- 
ple who  do  not  observe  accurately  are  accustomed  to 
associate  exclusively  with  autumn.  Now  I  cannot  but 
think  that  it  is  an  advantage  to  an  artist  to  have  such  a 
resource  as  this  rich  color  affords  him,  and  to  know 
the  cause  of  it ;  and  I  think  also  that  it  would  perhaps 
be  well  if  critics  knew  enough  of  Nature  not  to  be  taken 
by  surprise  when  a  landscape-painter  happened  to  avail 
himself  of  this  coloring.  There  are  tints  in  spring,  of 
which  this  is  an  example,  that  everybody  would  call 
autumnal  in  a  picture,  and  yet  in  Nature  they  often  com- 
pensate for  the  crudeness  of  the  early  greens  by  ming- 
ling with  them  in  large  masses.  Amongst  the  numerous 
varieties  of  oak  that  are  indigenous  in  western  Europe 
there  are  species  whose  young  leaves,  freshly  sprouting 
in  the  month  of  May,  give  the  richest  golden  color, 
deepening  into  red,  especially  glorious  when  the  sun- 
shine filters  through  them  ;  and  so,  in  a  minor  degree, 
do  the  leaves  of  the  aspen  poplar  in  their  season. 

Although  the  May  landscape  is  richer  in  floral 
splendor  than  that  of  any  other  time,  and  splendor 
of  that  kind  is  difficult  to  harmonize,  it  is  still  much 
nearer  to  artistic  harmony  than  the  hues  of  April.  The 
hawthorn,  having  abundant  leafage  intermingled  with 
its  flowers,  escapes  the  extreme  chilliness  of  the  snow- 
like  blossoming  of  the  blackthorn,  and  the  plentifully 
sprinkled  starworts  carry  the  white  down  into  the 
hedge  bottoms.  Hardly  any  color  at  this  season  is  un- 


May  —  Chaucer 's  White  and  Green.       1 3  r 

pleasantly  isolated.  The  note  that  is  pitched  amongst 
the  branches  of  some  tree  or  shrub  is  pretty  sure  to  be 
repeated  on  the  ground  by  some  humble  wild-flower. 
Notwithstanding  the  variety  of  flaming  gold  and  blue 
that  may  be  found  wherever  the  brooms  and  bugles  are 
abundant,  the  chief  colors  of  May  are  the  white  and 
green  of  Chaucer,  as  he  describes  them  on  one  of  his 
customary  early  walks:  — 

'  Anone  as  I  the  day  espide 
No  longer  would  I  in  my  bed  abide, 
But  unto  a  wood  that  was  fast  by 
I  went  forth  alone  boldly, 
And  held  the  way  down  by  a  brooke  side 
Till  I  came  to  a  laund  of  white  and  grene. 
So  faire  one  had  I  never  in  been  ; 
The  ground  was  grene,  y-poudred  with  daisie, 
The  floures  and  the  greves  on  hie, 
All  grene  and  white ,  was  nothing  els  seene? 

And  now,  if  I  were  asked  to  name  one  plant  as 
typical  of  the  color  and  fragrance  of  this  sweet  season, 
what  other  could  it  be  than  that  modest  and  singularly 
beloved  one,  the  lily  of  the  valley  ?  I  know  not  whether 
it  is  from  some  dear  early  association,  from  having  seen 
one  who  is  gone  to  her  rest  long  ago  arranging  these 
flowers  that  were  her  favorites,  and  setting  them  in 
clear  water  on  her  work-table  to  be  companions  for  her  in 
bygone  months  of  May,  but  it  is  certain  that  of  all  the 
flowers  that  grow  this  little  one  most  surely  touches 
the  tenderest  place  in  my  heart.  And  every  year  when 
the  time  comes  for  its  blossoming,  and  when  first  I  find 
it  in  the  cool  and  shady  spots  that  suit  it  best,  there 


132  May  —  The  Lily  of  the  Valley. 

comes  a  film  of  moisture  across  my  eyes,  not  quite  con- 
sistent perhaps  with  the  hardness  of  perfect  manhood. 
But  let  each  of  us  live  after  his  own  nature ;  for  of  the 
two  figures  that  we  remember  as  most  characteristic  of 
the  middle  ages,  —  the  poet  lying  on  the  earth  all  through 
the  sunny  day  dreaming  and  doting  on  the  flowers,  and 
the  knight  sheathed  in  complete  steel  crushing  them 
under  the  hoofs  of  his  war-horse  and  sullying  them 
with  the  blood  of  his  enemy, — -it  is  the  first  who  has 
my  sympathy.  Where  in  the  world  can  there  be  any 
thing  more  perfect  than  these  lilies  of  the  valley  ?  Look 
at  their  twin-leaves,  outlined  so  delicately,  just  two  of 
them,  perfect  as  the  wings  of  a  bird,  and  the  few  white 
bells  that  tremble  on  the  slender  stalk,  shedding  the 
sweetest  perfume  !  Be  sure  that  here  we  have  one  of 
Nature's  most  complete  conceptions.  You  may  look 
upon  a  mountain  and  wish  that  it  were  loftier  or  more 
precipitous,  upon  a  river  and  wish  that  it  were  clearer, 
upon  a  tree  and  desire  for  it  some  farther  spreading 
of  its  boughs,  some  richer  filling  of  its  foliage, — but 
you  cannot  look  upon  a  lily  of  the  valley  and  wish  it 
to  be  other  than  it  is.  Only  one  addition  is  possible, 
and  that  is  given  in  the  cool  of  the  early  morning,  when 
there  hangs  upon  each  of  those  fairy  bells  one  pure, 
bright  drop  of  dew. 

It  is  curious  that  a  plant  so  humble  and  sweet  as  this 
should  have  had  a  great  reputation  for  giving  strength 
to  the  weary  and  the  weak  ;  but  with  that  strangely 
groundless  faith  that  characterized  the  pre-scientific 
ages,  our  forefathers  were  quite  strongly  convinced 


May —  The  Golden  Water.  133 

upon  this  point,  and  distilled  from  it  a  miraculous 
water,  —  the  *  Golden  Water,'  as  they  called  it ;  and 
whoso  drank  thereof  was  believed  to  be  sure  of  regain- 
ing the  strength  that  had  left  his  limbs.  Is  it  not 
sad  that  we  may  no  longer  put  trust  in  all  those  wonder- 
ful remedies  —  there  are  a  hundred  of  them  —  which  in 
old  times  gave  hope  at  least,  if  they  could  not  restore 
to  health  ?  There  is  another  humble  little  plant  that 
flowers  in  May  (and  also  in  October)  in  pastures  and 
waste  places,  and  was  called  Potentilla,  because  it  was 
believed  to  be  so  potent  as  a  remedy.  In  these  days 
we  see  its  pretty  yellow  flowers  without  reverence  for 
its  potency.  Just  in  the  same  temper  of  ready  credulity 
on  the  most  fanciful  grounds  our  forefathers  used  to 
believe  that  the  plant  they  called  Lung-wort  (Pulmona- 
rid)  must  be  good  for  the  cure  of  lung  disease,  because 
its  leaves  were  blotched  like  the  lungs  of  a  consumptive 
person !  What  a  wonderful  piece  of  reasoning  that 
was  !  How  remote  from  the  scientific  spirit !  We  may 
laugh,  and  yet  that  is  exactly  the  sort  of  reasoning 
which  finds  ready  acceptance  with  the  untrained  minds 
of  the  vulgar,  and  a  hundred  things  are  still  believed  by 
uneducated  persons  of  all  ranks  on  grounds  at  least 
equally  absurd. 


1 34  May  —  The  Songs  of  Birds. 


XXVI. 

White  of  Selborne  —  The  Songs  of  Birds  —  Canaries  —  Birds  in  Liberty 
—  Our  Love  for  the  Songs  of  Birds  Poetical  and  not  Musical  —  The 
Warbling  of  Birds  really  Discordant  —  Disillusion  — Reason  and  Sen- 
timent —  Condescension  of  the  Divine  Mind  —  Poets  and  Birds  — 
Mingled  Warbling  —  The  Dominant  Songster  —  Chaucer's  Fancy  of 
the  Religious  Singing-birds — The  Throstle — The  Peacock  —  The 
Owl  — The  'Romaunt  of  the  Rose.' 

IT  is  just  a  hundred  years  since  Gilbert  White  of 
Selborne  lamented  the  *  frequent  return  of  deaf- 
ness '  that  incommoded  him,  and  deprived  him  of 
much  enjoyment  and  many  opportunities  of  observa- 
tion. Especially  did  he  lament  that  when  this  deaf- 
ness was  upon  him  he  '  lost  all  the  pleasing  notice  and 
little  intimations  arising  from  rural  sounds/  so  that  May 
was  *  as  silent  and  mute  with  respect  to  the  notes  of 
birds  as  August.'  Here,  indeed,  was  a  sad  loss  to  one 
who  so  deeply  appreciated  the  pleasures  of  a  country 
life,  and  who  used  his  senses  so  well  for  the  work  of  a 
naturalist  while  he  possessed  them.  All  true  rural  poets 
and  observers  have  loved  the  songs  of  birds.  There  are 
occasionally  to  be  found  beings  unfortunate  enough  not 
to  enjoy  these  melodies,  and  I  know  one  wretch  who 
says  he  does  not  much  care  for  his  country-house  at  a 
certain  season  of  the  year  '  on  account  of  that  bother- 
some noise  of  nightingales/  Certainly  this  bird-music 


May  —  Canaries.  135 

may  sometimes  become  importunate.  There  is  a  land- 
scape-painter in  Paris  who  is  a  great  canary-fancier,  and 
has  a  very  large  cage  full  of  these  birds  in  the  studio 
where  he  paints.  So  long  as  he  is  alone  it  may  be  very 
delightful,  for  perhaps  his  little  yellow  friends  sing  to 
him  with  moderation  ;  but  no  sooner  does  a  visitor  enter 
the  room  and  try  to  begin  a  conversation  than  all  the 
canaries  set  up  such  a  clatter  that  no  human  voice  is 
audible. 

The  birds  in  the  free  woods  fill  the  air  incessantly 
in  spring  with  their  merry  noises,  but  their  garrulity 
never  tries  our  patience  like  that  of  the  poor  prisoners 
in  cages.  Is  it  really  music  that  they  make,  and  do 
they  charm  the  ear  as  music  does,  or  move  some  fibre 
of  poetic  sentiment  in  our  hearts  ?  I  believe  that  the 
feeling  they  reach  within  us  is  a  poetical  and  not  a 
musical  feeling.  The  notes  of  birds  may  be  imitated 
with  deceptive  accuracy,  and  yet  a  concert  of  such 
imitations  would  not  attract  an  audience.  The  wild 
bird  utters  its  notes  and  we  are  delighted  ;  the  human 
imitator  accurately  reproduces  the  same  notes  with  in- 
geniously contrived  whistles,  and  we  remain  indifferent. 
Here,  too,  is  another  consideration  which  may  be  worth 
notice.  So  long  as  one  bird  performs  a  solo  it  may  be 
a  melody,  but  when  half-a-dozen  are  singing  at  the 
same  time  is  it  concerted  music  that  they  sing  ?  Does 
each  of  them  take  his  part  in  a  general  harmony,  like  a 
chorus-singer  at  the  opera  ?  No,  their  science  is  not 
equal  to  any  thing  requiring  subordination  of  parts. 
And  the  plain  truth  is,  that  the  warbling  of  a  multitude 


136  May  —  Reason  and  Sentiment. 

of  birds  must  necessarily  be  full  of  discords  ;  yet  people 
of  musical  taste  endure  it,  and  even  delight  in  it.  For 
the  birds  are  pets  of  ours,  they  have  especially  been  pets 
of  the  poets,  and  we  regard  their  performances  with 
the  most  tender  and  affectionate  indulgence.,  It  has 
occurred  to  me  more  than  once  to  hear  what  I  took  for 
birds'  notes,  and  to  think  '  what  delicious  purity  of  tone, 
what  softness,  what  ravishing  quality  ! '  and  immediately 
afterwards  to  discover  that  these  wondrous  notes  had 
been  simply  whistled  by  some  boy  behind  a  hedge,  after 
which  discovery  all  their  fine  qualities  vanished. 

So  much  for  the  criticism  of  reason  ;  but  when  we 
let  sentiment  have  her  way,  as  in  this  matter  we  may 
and  ought  to  do,  then  we  fall  at  once  under  the  old 
charm  and  can  listen  enraptured,  as  Chaucer  did.  For 
the  songs  of  birds  convey  to  us  far  more  than  the  mere 
sound ;  they  are  voices  of  Nature  speaking  to  us  joy- 
ously, tenderly,  caressing  the  childish  part  of  our  being 
with  simple  lullabies,  and  thus  gently  effacing  the  too  sad 
or  awful  impression  which  many  other  sounds  of  wild 
things  make  upon  us  ;  such  as  the  screeching  of  church- 
yard owls,  the  croak  of  the  raven,  the  wild  cry  of  plovers 
toppling  over  in  the  wind  on  the  ridges  of  desolate 
moors.  We  love  the  little  singing^birds  because  they  so 
prettily  tell  us  that,  notwithstanding  the  hard  regularity 
of  the  laws  that  govern  the  world,  the  Divine  Mind 
condescended  to  take  pleasure  in  cheerful  little  beings 
that  sing  of  gladness  only,  and  know  no  other  theme. 
Who  can  tell  what  man  himself  may  have  gained  from 
the  singing  of  the  birds,  how  much  his  heart  may  have 


May  —  Poets  and  Birds.  1 3  7 

been  cheered  by  it,  and  his  labor  lightened  ?  All  the 
poets,  without  exception,  who  have  written  of  what  is 
charming  and  beautiful  in  Nature,  have  spoken  lovingly 
of  singing-birds  ;  and  therefore  it  may  be  presumed  that 
the  great  multitude  of  '  poets  who  have  never  penned 
their  inspiration/  and  the  still  greater  multitude  who, 
without  being  mute  poets,  have  nevertheless  some  share 
of  poetic  faculty  or  feeling,  do  all  take  pleasure  in  this 
simple  sylvan  music.  In  aviaries  it  easily  becomes  over- 
powering, but  in  the  open  woods  it  is  mellowed  by  many 
various  distances  ;  and  as  there  is  a  perspective  in  what 
we  see  there,  as  the  trees  at  a  distance  mingle  a  thousand 
various  tints  into  a  quiet  harmony  of  color,  so  do  the 
songs  of  a  thousand  birds  mix  together  into  a  delicious 
indistinguishable  warbling,  of  which  the  most  perfect 
ear  could  never  analyze  the  elements.  And  just  as 
some  one  branch  or  leaf  will  detach  itself  brilliantly  in 
the  sunshine  from  the  rich  mystery  that  lies  behind  it, 
so  will  the  voice  of  one  songster  pipe  clearly  over  all 
the  rest  till  it  is  lost  again  in  the  pervading  atmosphere 
of  sound. 

Every  one  who  cares  for  old  poetry  will  remember 
the  stanzas  in  Chaucer's  '  Court  of  Love/  where  he 
makes  all  the  birds 'sing  religiously  in  May,  —  one  of 
the  quaintest  and  prettiest  of  his  fancies,  but  worked 
out  too  fully  in  detail  to  admit  of  any  complete  quota- 
tion. Here  are  just  a  couple  of  stanzas  as  specimens  of 
the  whole :  — 

*  "  Te  deum  amoris"  sang  the  throstel  cocke ; 
Tuball  himself,  the  first  musician, 


1 38  May  —  Chaucer^s  Fancy. 

With  key  of  armony  could  not  unlocke 

So  swete  tune  as  that  the  throstel  can : 

"  The  lorde  of  love  we  praisen  "  (quod  he  then, 

And  so  done  all  the  foules  great  and  lite), 

Honour  we  May,  in  false  lover's  despite. 

"  Dominus  regnavit"  said  the  pecocke  there, 

"  The  lord  of  love,  that  mighty  prince  ywis, 

He  is  received  here  and  everywhere. 

Now  Jubilate  sing."  —  "  What  meaneth  this  ? " 

Said  then  the  linnet :  "  Welcome,  lord  of  blisse." 

Out  sterte  the  owl  with  "  Benedicite, 

What  meaneth  all  this  merry  fare  ? "  (quod  he.)' 

There  is  no  end  to  the  allusions  to  singing-birds  in 
Chaucer,  but  one  of  the  most  delicately  charming  of 
these  consists  of  three  couplets  in  the  '  Romaunt  of  the 
Rose,'  which  always  come  back  to  my  memory  when  I 
hear  the  birds  in  May.  '  Harde  is  his  heart/  says  the 
poet : — 

'  Harde  is  his  heart  that  loveth  nought 

In  May,  when  all  this  mirth  is  wrought, 

When  he  may  on  these  branches  here 

The  smalle  birdes  singen  clere 

Hir  blissful  sweet  song  piteous, 

And  in  this  season  delitious.' 


May  —  Hymn  of  the  Birds.  139 


XXVII. 

Hymn  of  the  Birds  to  the  Sun,  by  Gawin  Douglas  —  The  Birds  hail  the 
Sun  with  Welcomes  —  How  the  Poets  love  the  Birds  —  How  the  Bird- 
catchers  love  them  — The  Mistletoe  —  St.  Lambert's  Poem  of  the  Four 
Seasons  —  Gentle  Heartlessness  —  The  Bird-catcher  in  Buff  on  —  The 
Work  of  Nest-building  —  Are  Birds  Architects  or  Masons  ?  —  Magpies 
—  The  Labor  given  to  a  Magpie's  Nest  —  Thrush,  Tom-tit,  Linnet  — 
Greenfinch  and  Goldfinch  — Wren — Excellent  Arrangement  of  Wren's 
Nest  —  Building  a  House  —  Building  for  Oneself —  Varieties  of  Nest- 
building —  Raising  and  Fixing  of  Material  —  Adhesion  of  Martin's 
Nests  —  Birds  that  like  to  be  rocked  in  their  Nests  —  The  Cuckoo  — 
Poet-cuckoos  —  Birds  and  Plants  —  The  Cuckoo-pint — Value  of  the 
Common  Arum  for  Artists. 

OF  all  the  fine  passages  in  old  poetry  concerning  the 
life  of  birds  in  Nature,  the  most  magnificent  is 
the  hymn  of  the  birds  to  the  Sun  in  Gawin  Douglas's 
prologue  to  the  twelfth  book  of  the  *  Eneid.'  I  should 
have  been  glad  to  abridge  the  quotation  had  it  been 
possible  without  spoiling  it,  but  I  find,  as  the  reader  will 
also,  that  the  series  of  verses  beginning  with  the  word 
'  Welcome '  could  not  have  their  due  effect  if  given  by 
themselves  ;  the  mind  needs  to  be  led  up  to  them  and 
tuned  to  the  proper  poetical  pitch  before  it  can  fully 
enter  into  the  fine  spirit  of  the  hymn  itself.  As  for  the 
little  difficulty  with  the  old  Scottish  words  it  vanishes 


140     May —  The  Birds  Welcome  to  the  Sun. 

on  the  second  or  third  reading,  and  such  poetry  as  this 
is  worth  reading  a  hundred  times  :  — 

'  The  cushat  crouds  and  pykkis  on  the  rise,* 
The  sterling  changes  divers  steunnys  nise,f 
The  sparrow  chirpis  in  the  walles  cleft, 
Gold  spink  and  linnet  fordynnand  the  lyftt 
The  cuckoo  galis,§  and  so  twitteris  the  quail 
While  rivers  reirdit ;  ||  schaws  and  every  dale, 
And  tender  twistis  tremble  on  the  trees, 
For  birdes  song  and  bemyng  of  the  bees, 
And  all  small  fowlis  singin  on  the  spray,  — 
"  Welcome  thou  lord  of  light  and  lampe  of  day, 
Welcome  thou  fosterer  of  herbis  grene, 
Welcome  quickener  of  freshest  flouris  shene, 
Welcome  support  of  every  root  and  vein, 
Welcome  comfort  of  al  kind  frute  and  grein, 
.Welcome  depainter  of  the  blooming  meads, 
Welcome  the  life  of  every  thing  that  spreads, 
Welcome  restorer  of  all  kind  bestial, 
Welcome  be  thy  bright  bemes  gladding  all."  ' 

What  is  pleasant  in  these  passages  of  the  quaint  old 
poets  is  their  hearty  love  for  the  birds  themselves  and 
full  participation  in  their  gladness.  The  sylvan  feeling 
of  the  bird-catcher  is  of  a  very  different  character ;  he, 
too,  rejoices  in  the  woods  ;  he,  too,  likes  to  hear  the  birds 
sing,  for  if  they  sing  they  exist,  and  if  they  exist  they 
may  be  ensnared,  and  afterwards  sold  or  roasted  as 
poverty  or  gluttony  may  suggest.  The  mistletoe  is  in 
full  berry  in  the  month  of  May,  and  its  berries,  which 

*  The  dove  crows  and  picks  on  the  bush. 
t  Tuneful  voices.  \  Heaven.  §  Cries.  ||  Sounded. 


May  —  Sa  in  t-L  amber t.  1 4 1 

seem  like  waxen  pearls  at  a  little  distance,  suggest  some 
rather  painful  reflections.  The  birds  plant  the  mistletoe 
on  the  branches  of  trees  by  depositing  its  seeds  there, 
undigested  ;  man  comes  and  makes  bird-lime  from  this 
very  mistletoe,  which  by  a  strange  fatality  causes  the 
destruction  of  the  very  creatures  to  whom  its  own  propa- 
gation is  due.  Could  any  poet  rejoice  over  their  miser- 
able fate,  and  think  those  moments  sweet  when  his 
victims  are  hopelessly  struggling  ?  Yes,  M.  Saint- Lam- 
bert, whose  poem  of  *  The  Seasons  '  is,  to  say  the  least, 
a  piece  of  beautiful  versification,  sometimes  rising  into 
more  elevated  regions,  expresses  the  keenest  delight  in 
that  exquisitely  cruel  business  of  bird-catching,  and  avows 
his  crimes  in  verses  of  the  most  finished  harmony  :  — 

'  Cent  fois,  dans  ma  jeunesse,  aux  rives  des  ruisseaux 
J'ai  seme  les  buissons  d'innombrables  reseaux : 
Avec  quel  mouvement  d'esperance  et  de  joie 
Vers  la  fin  d'un  beau  jour,  j'allais  chercher  ma  proie  ! 
A  present  meme  encor,  sous  les  rameaux  naissans  ; 
De  1'oiseau  de  la  nuit  imitant  les  accents, 
Des  habitans  des  bois  j'entends  la  troupe  aile*e 
S'avancer,  voltiger  autour  de  ma  feuillee. 
J'ecoute,  en  palpitant,  leur  vol  precipite"  ; 
D'un  transport  vif  et  doux  mon  coeur  est  agUe" 
Quand  je  les  vois  tomber  sur  ces  verges  perfides 
Qu'infectade  ses  sues  Tarbrisseau  des  druides, 
O  doux  emploi  des  jours  !  agre"ables  momens ! ' 

It  would  be  difficult  to  find  any  thing  more  gently 
heartless  and  amiably  selfish  than  these  last  well-polished 
verses  It  is  like  the  gentleness  of  the  mild-minded 
angler  enjoying  the  pleasant  sunshine  and  the  purling 


142  May —  The  Bird-catcher. 

stream,  whilst  the  living  bait  writhes  in  torture  on  his 
hook.  Agr fables  momens  !  Not  for  the  birds,  surely  ! 
not  for  the  birds!  And  before  quitting  this  subject  let 
me  just  observe  how  painfully  the  bird-catcher  is  con- 
tinually reappearing  in  so  great  a  writer  as  Buffon.  He 
never  fails  to  give  his  readers  instructions,  in  this  line  of 
business,  and  generally  tells  them  whether  every  little 
bird  is  good  to  eat  or  not.  Fancy  eating  a  brace  of 
wrens,  or  of  torn-tits  !  It  is  true  that  we  eat  smaller 
creatures  still,  —  shrimps,  for  example;  and  the  Bur- 
gundy vine-snail  is  both  good  and  nourishing  :  but  our 
sentiments  are  not  enlisted  in  their  behalf.  To  my 
feeling  the  most  agreeable  bit  of  information  about  bird- 
catching  that  I  ever  gleaned  from  the  great  naturalist 
of  Montbard  is,  that  the  wren,  from  its  extreme  small- 
ness,  gets  through  the  meshes  of  the  finest  nets  and  so 
happily  escapes.  I  wish  all  the  other  birds  could  do 
likewise. 

The  wonderful  work  of  nest-building  goes  on  with 
immense  activity  in  the  spring.  What  a  difference 
there  is  in  relation  to  this  business  between  a  human 
couple  and  the  wedded  birds !  The  human  couple 
either  inherit  a  nest  already  made,  generally  without 
the  most  remote  conception  of  the  labor  it  cost  to 
make  it,  or  else  they  hire  another  nest  without  much 
serious  interest  or  affection ;  but  the  bird  and  his  wife 
are  their  own  masons,  and  also  their  own  architects, 
being  usually  more  successful  in  this  latter  capacity 
than  the  unprofessional  human  designer  of  habitations. 
Or  is  it  not  more  accurate  to  say  of  them  that,  strictly 


May  —  Magpies.  143 

speaking,  they  are  masons  only,  working  after  the  plans 
of  a  greater  Architect  than  those  who  devise  big  palaces 
in  stone  and  mortar  ?  If  masons  only,  at  least  they  are 
most  industrious  masons.  The  Marquis  de  Cherville, 
who  is  an  accurate  observer  of  what  passes  too  often 
unobserved  in  the  quiet  routine  of  Nature,  says  that  he 
watched  a  pair  of  magpies  from  the  beginning  of  their 
nest-building  to  the  end.  They  had  fixed  themselves 
in  a  large  poplar,  just  before  M.  de  Cherville's  window, 
and  he  watched  them  both  from  his  desk  and  from  his 
bed,  missing  hardly  any  thing  that  they  did.  The  work 
lasted  for  forty-seven  days,  during  which,  especially  in 
the  morning  and  evening,  the  two  birds  carried  materials 
with  a  feverish  activity.  In  a  single  day  he  counted 
two  hundred  and  eight  journeys  in  quest  of  material, 
and  this  was  not  the  whole.  But  the  nest  of  a  magpie 
is  a  very  rude  affair,  indeed,  when  compared  with  the 
highly  finished  and  delicate  workmanship  of  many  other 
birds.  The  thrush,  the  torn-tit,  and  some  kinds  of  lin- 
net, are  master-builders  in  different  ways.  The  thrush 
makes  the  outside  of  his  nest  with  almost  any  thing 
that  comes  to  hand,  —  with  moss,  with  straw,  or  dried 
leaves ;  but  his  great  skill  is  displayed  in  the  fabrica- 
tion of  the  stout  mill-board  that  constitutes  its  inner 
wall  or  shell,  made  of  wet  mud  well  beaten,  strength- 
ened with  bits  of  straw  and  roots.  The  thrush  likes 
this  hard  and  smooth  interior,  not  caring  for  the  lux- 
ury of  soft  feather-beds,  but  some  other  birds  are  more 
luxurious.  The  greenfinch  and  goldfinch  are  amongst 
the  cleverest  of  bird  upholsterers.  They  know  how  to 


144  May — The  Wren. 

feather  their  nests  well,  and  have  an  English  taste  for 
carpets  and  interior  comfort,  well  knowing  the  value  of 
bits  of.  wool,  and  hair,  and  feathers.  The  wren  has 
another  English  taste  also,  for  he  likes  his  house  to 
be  not  only  comfortable,  but  big ;  and,  small  as  he  is, 
he  has  large  ideas  in  the  way  of  architecture.  I  like  his 
plan  of  a  little  doorway  in  the  side,  just  big  enough 
for  his  small  person  to  pass  through  ;  it  is  infinitely 
more  snug  than  the  commoner  system  of  sitting  in  a 
sort  of  enlarged  egg-cup :  and,  besides  these  advan- 
tages, the  wren's  house  is  not  easily  discovered,  being 
apparently  a  shapeless  lump  of  moss,  though  so  artfully 
shaped  within.  How  interesting  it  would  be  if  some 
observer,  like  the  Marquis  de  Cherville,  could  watch  a 
couple  of  wrens  at  work  from  the  very  beginning  to  the 
moment  of  their  happy  house-warming,  when  the  soft 
clear  down  was  all  arranged  snugly  as  a  lining  to  the 
wee  dwelling,  and  just  ready  to  receive  the  -wonderfully 
tiny  white  eggs  !  Is  not  this  much  more  interesting,  as 
well  as  more  admirably  laborious,  than  the  furnishing 
of  some  house  in  a  row  run  up  by  some  speculator,  with 
balconies  that  you  dare  not  step  out  upon  for  fear  that 
they  should  fall  with  you  down  upon  the  dangerous- 
looking  railings  ?  I  think  there  must  be  an  infinite 
pleasure  in  building  one's  own  house,  —  not  as  rich  peo- 
ple use  the  words,  when  they  say  '  I  am  going  to  build,' 
but  in  doing  it  with  one's  own  hands  —  a  pleasure 
founded  upon  the  primitive  depths  of  our  original  wild 
nature.  It  has  sometimes  occurred  to  me  to  talk  with 
very  poor  men  who  really  had  done  this  with  their  own 


May  —  Varieties  of  Nest-building.         145 

hands,  and  the  satisfaction  their  rough  work  gave  them 
was  evidently  of  a  kind  that  no  wealth  could  ever  pur- 
chase. Observe  the  zest  with  which  travellers  in  wild 
countries,  who  have  been  compelled  to  erect  dwellings 
for  themselves,  describe  the  interesting  process,  and 
gravely  give  directions  to  others,  a  spirit  of  the  keenest 
enjoyment  being  visible  throughout  the  prudence  of 
their  precepts  ! 

I  have  noticed  the  wide  difference  of  refinement  and 
skill  in  nest-building  between  such  different  birds  as  the 
magpie  and  the  thrush,  linnets,  &c.,  but  Gilbert  White 
remarked  that  there  was  a  great  disparity  in  this  respect 
between  'birds  of  the  same  genus,  and  nearly  corre- 
spondent in  their  general  mode  of  life;  for  while  the 
swallow  and  the  house-martin  discover  the  greatest 
address  in  raising  and  securely  fixing  crusts,  or  shells, 
of  loam,  as  cunabula  for  their  young,  the  bank-martin 
terebrates  a  round  and  regular  hole  in  the  sand  or  earth, 
which  is  serpentine,  horizontal,  and  about  two  feet  deep. 
At  the  inner  end  of  this  burrow  does  this  bird  deposit, 
in  a  good  degree  of  safety,  her  rude  nest,  consisting  of 
fine  grasses  and  feathers,  usually  goose-feathers,  very 
inartificially  laid  together.'  Here,  in  a  very  few  words, 
he  perfectly  describes  what  is  most  wonderful  in  the 
skilful  toil  of  the  swallows  and  house-martins,  their 
address  in  raising  and  securely  fixing  the  crusts  they 
build  so  cleverly.  The  raising,  however,  is  compara- 
tively mechanical ;  it  is  the  fixing  that  always  surprises 
one.  Some  windows  in  the  old  house  at  the  Val  Ste. 
Veronique  had  been  left  unopened  for  years,  and  the 

10 


146  May  —  Martins  Nests. 

hirondelles  des  /entires  had  fixed  their  nests  in  the 
corners,  partly  on  the  woodwork  and  the  stone  sides, 
but  partly  also  upon  the  very  glass  itself.  It  seemed 
necessary  to  air  these  chambers  and  to  open  the  win- 
dows, which  I  did  with  the  greatest  regret,  but  it 
afforded  a  singularly  good  opportunity  for  ascertain- 
ing the  actual  strength  of  adhesion  in  the  nests,  which 
was  truly  surprising.  Not  only  are  the  birds  themselves 
perfectly  safe  in  them,  for  they  weigh  scarcely  any  thing 
to  speak  of,  but  it  would  require  a  considerable  weight 
to  detach  the  little  structure  from  its  place ;  and  even 
after  the  nests  had  been  torn  away  from  the  windows, 
large  fragments  of  them  still  adhered  obstinately  to 
the  stonework.  I  imagine  that  these  birds,  which  are 
almost  always  in  movement,  have  a  particular  satisfac- 
tion in  feeling  that  their  nest  is  firm  and  substantial ;  so 
they  fix  it  to  the  strong  work  of  human  masons  that  is 
not  shaken  by  the  wind.  In  this  preference  for  what 
is  fixed  and  substantial  they  differ  notably  from  some 
other  birds  that  like  their  nests  to  be  rocked  like  a 
sailor's  hammock,  which  one  would  imagine  must  be 
fatiguing  in  windy  weather ;  however,  it  is  their  taste, 
and  there  is  no  disputing  about  tastes.  Buffon  re- 
marks that  goldfinches  like  to  build  upon  thin  and 
weak  branches,  especially  of  plum-trees  and  walnuts, 
that  are  rocked  by  the  wind.  It  is  to  be  supposed  that 
these  little  creatures  are  independent  of  the  sensation 
of  sea-sickness. 

One  has  a  particular  respect  for  the  industrious  nest- 
builders  that  have  houses  of  their  own  and  establish 


May —  The  Cuckoo.  147 

themselves  respectably  in  life ;  but  it  is  difficult  to  feel 
any  such  sentiment  towards  the  cuckoo  when  we  hear 
the  two  notes  of  his  monotonous  ditty,  and  see  him 
pass  from  grove  to  grove  with  his  silently  gliding  flight. 
But  if  the  cuckoo  is  not  a  respectable  personage,  since 
he  will  neither  build  his  own  house  nor  bring  up  his 
own  offspring,  he  has  an  advantage  in  common  with  cer- 
tain celebrities  in  literature  and  art ;  which  is,  that  every- 
body knows  his  voice.  It  requires  considerable  sylvan 
experience  to  distinguish  some  birds  by  their  voices, 
and  it  is  only  the  most  observant  naturalists  who  can 
recognize  each  of  them  with  certainty ;  but  the  citizen, 
who  rarely  visits  the  country,  knows  the  cuckoo  when 
he  hears  him.  The  reader  at  once  perceives  the  moral 
which  is  impending.  The  cuckoo  is  like  a  poet  who 
says  but  little,  and  always  repeats  that  little  without 
variety,  yet  who  enjoys  a  great  reputation  because  his 
one  song  is  at  the  same  time  agreeable,  perfectly 
original,  and  perfectly  inimitable.  There  have  been 
such  poet-cuckoos. 

Nothing  is  more  curious  in  popular  botany  and 
ornithology  than  the  way  in  which  popular  beliefs 
associate  together  certain  birds  and  plants.  Why,  for 
example,  is  the  cuckoo  particularly  associated  with  the 
common  arum,  which  is  called  the  cuckoo-pint  ?  Is 
the  bird  supposed  to  drink  the  dew  or  the '  rain-water 
from  the  spatha  ?  The  explanation  of  the  popular 
fancy  about  cuckoo-spit,  which  is  the  frothy  exudation 
of  a  certain  larva,  was  suggested  with  great  probability 
by  Buffon.  He  thought  it  possible  that  a  cuckoo  might 


148  May —  The  Common  Arum. 

have  been  observed  in  the  act  of  seeking  the  larva  in 
the  froth,  and  that  the  rustic  observer  had  concluded 
the  froth  to  be  the  cuckoo's  own  saliva ;  after  which 
it  might  have  been  noticed  that  an  insect  came  out  of 
such  froth,  whence  the  conclusion  that  vermin  was 
engendered  from  the  saliva  of  the  bird.  And  what  a 
strange  old  notion  it  was  that  the  cuckoo  travelled 
on  the  back  of  a  kite,  which  was  thought  to  be  amia- 
ble enough  to  submit  to  the  inconvenience  of  such  a 
burden !  It  is  almost  impossible  to  imagine  any  ob- 
served fact  which  may  have  given  rise  to  such  an 
improbable  myth  as  this. 

Whether  or  not  the  cuckoo  takes  any  particular 
interest  in  the  common  arum,  it  is  a  valuable  fore- 
ground plant  for  artists,  being  one  of  the  earliest  in 
the  season  of  those  whose  leaves  are  large  enough  to 
be  of  some  consequence  in  a  picture.  The  only  misfor- 
tune about  it  is  a  love  of  shelter,  which  makes  it  grow 
almost  always  in  situations  where  it  is  half  concealed, 
such  as  nooks  and  thickets,  and  shady  places  under 
hedges.  One  of  the  earliest  of  our  botanical  expe- 
riences is  a  feeling  of  astonishment  about  its  peculiar 
way  of  flowering,  and  the  incipient  botanist  is  sure  to 
feel  at  the  same  time  interested  and  puzzled  by  the  long 
spike  and  the  leafy  spatha,  which  he  always  remembers 
afterwards. 


May —  The  Water  Iris.  149 


XXVIII. 

Water  Iris  —  The  Royal  Flower — Lychnis  —  Origin  of  the  Name  —  The 
Spurge  Family  —  Bitter  Reverie  —  A  Poet's  Botany  —  Use  of  Poets' 
Fancies. 

OF  other  plants  that  show  themselves  in  May  it 
would  be  easy  to  make  a  considerable  catalogue. 
There  is  the  water  iris,  for  example,  which  in  this  part 
of  the  world  has  tall  blades  early  in  the  month  and 
flowers  towards  the  end  of  it,  giving  considerable  mag- 
nificence of  color  to  the  banks  of  streams.  It  is  re- 
markable amongst  flowers  as  having  been  chosen  by 
the  kings  of  France  to  decorate  their  shields  and 
banners,  for  in  the  middle  ages  it  was  called  the  Us. 
This,  at  least,  is  the  more  probable  view,  considering 
the  form  and  color  of  the  flower,  though  the  popular 
belief  is  that  the  large  white  lily  is  the  royal  flower  of 
the  Bourbons.  But  the  white  lily  bears  no  resemblance 
to  the  fleur-de-lis,  whereas  the  water  iris  curves  out  its 
petals  in  such  a  way  as  to  produce  a  very  striking  like- 
ness to  the  heraldic  flower.  Besides  this,  the  fleur-de-lis 
is  or  in  heraldry,  and,  without  attaching  too  much  im- 
portance to  the  choice  of  the  metal,  one  cannot  but 
think  it  likely  that  a  sovereign  who  had  felt  pleased 
with  the  white  lily  would  have  preserved  the  record  of 
its  whiteness  by  blazoning  it  argent.  For  my  part  I 
feel  no  doubt  about  the  matter,  and  the  golden  flowers 


1 50  May  —  Lychnis. 

of  the  water  iris  have,  for  me,  associations  with  history 
as  well  as  landscape. 

From  the  beginning  of  May  there  are  also  immense 
quantities  of  flowering  lychnis,  whose  bright  red  is  like 
gems  scattered  prodigally  by  field  and  river.  The  plant 
was  used  in  Greece  for  garlands,  and  it  seems  possible 
that  in  this  way  it  may  have  been  associated  with  the 
idea  of  a  light-giving  gem  that  was  called  \vyyk  also.  I 
am  aware  that  another  interpretation  has  been  suggested. 
It  is  said  that  the  Greeks  used  a  plant  of  this  kind  for 
lamp-wicks,  and  as  they  called  a  portable  lamp  \vyyos 
the  flower  got  its  name  from  this  more  utilitarian  origin 
I  cling  by  preference  to  the  association  with  the  gem 
rather  than  the  lamp,  and  I  should  like  very  much  to 
know  what  was  the  color  of  the  gem  \vyyk.  If  it 
were  red,  that  would  almost  settle  the  question.  But 
whatever  may  have  been  the  origin  of  its  name,  the 
lychnis  is  one  of  the  brightest  and  most  abundant  of 
wild  flowers,  giving  a  wonderful  gayety  to  foregrounds 
wherever  it  occurs. 

A  perfect  contrast  in  this  respect  are  the  members 
of  the  humble  spurge  family,  with  their  flowers,  green- 
like  leaves,  and  their  cold,  white,  milky  blood,  caustic 
and  pungent.  With  a  poet's  felicity  of  choice  Rossetti 
selected  this  unattractive  plant  as  the  object  of  contem- 
plation in  an  hour  of  bitter  reverie: — 

*  Between  my  knees  my  forehead  was,  — 
My  lips,  drawn  in,  said  not  Alas  ! 
My  hair  was  over  in  the  grass, 
My  naked  ears  heard  the  day  pass. 


May  —  A  Poet's  Botany.  151 

My  eyes,  wide  open,  had  the  run 

Of  some  ten  weeds  to  fix  upon  ; 

Among  those  few,  out  of  the  sun, 

The  woodspurge  flowered,  three  cups  in  one. 

From  perfect  grief  there  need  not  be 
Wisdom  or  even  memory  : 
One  thing  then  learnt  remains  to  me,  — 
The  woodspurge  has  a  cup  of  three.'  * 

This,  of  course,  is  a  poet's  botany,  and  one  does  not 
expect  it  to  be  very  accurately  scientific.  Rossetti 
means,  by  his  *  cup  of  three/  the  pair  of  flowers  at  the 
end  of  each  ray  of  the  umbel,  and  the  floral  leaves 
beneath  the  pair  which  are  connected  into  one  large 
orbicular  leaf.  The  two  flowers  and  the  orbicular  leaf 
below  make  up  the  number  three,  and  this  is  the  only 
explanation  I  can  venture  to  suggest.  Is  it  worth  while 
to  dwell  in  this  way  upon  poets'  fancies  in  connection 
with  the  subjects  of  our  study  ?  Yes,  I  think  it  is  ;  for 
experience  proves  that  nothing  impresses  natural  objects 
upon  the  memory  so  much  as  association  with  human 
thought  and  fancy,  even  when,  as  in  the  case  of  many 
popular  superstitions,  it  has  no  foundation  in  fact. 

*  D.  G.  Rossetti's  Poems,  Roberts  Brothers'  Ed.  p.  249. 


152  May —  The  Horse-chestnut. 


XXIX. 

Artistic  and  other  Ideas  of  Beauty  —  The  Horse-chestnut — A  Painter's 
Embarrassment  —  Countable  yet  Numerous  Things  —  Leaves  —  Foli- 
age—  Objection  to  the  Horse-chestnut  —  Glory  of  the  Tree  in  May 
—  Transparencies  —  Bold  and  decided  Contrasts  —  Flowers  of  the 
Horse-chestnut. 

ONE  of  the  most  striking  examples  of  the  difference 
between  artistic  ideas  of  beauty  and  those  ideas 
of  beauty  which  we  derive  directly  from  Nature  without 
the  intervention  of  painting  is  supplied  by  the  horse- 
chestnut.  In  Nature  it  is  one  of  the  most  noble  of  all 
trees,  yet  it  has  rarely  been  celebrated  by  landscape- 
painters,  who,  when  you  talk  to  them  about  it,  almost 
invariably  express  a  dislike  for  the  peculiar  quality  of 
its  foliage ;  nor  have  they  been  more  attracted  by  its 
magnificent  efflorescence,  although  in  our  northern 
countries  no  other  tree  of  equal  dimensions  bears  such 
splendid  flowers,  or  any  thing  comparable  to  them.  The 
reason  is  easily  discovered.  In  the  art  of  painting  there 
is  always  a  peculiar  embarrassment  in  dealing  with 
things  that  are  countable  and  yet  exceedingly  numerous. 
Such  things  require  great  labor  for  their  individualiza- 
tion,  because  the  eye  so  easily  detects  a  failure  or  in- 
sufficiency in  design  ;  whilst,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is 
a  difficulty  in  passing  from  this  complete  individuality 
of  the  things  seen  near  at  hand  to  the  mystery  of  the 
things  that  are  utterly  past  counting.  When  things  are 


May  —  Foliage.  153 

large  enough,  and  shapely  enough,  to  require  careful 
drawing,  an  artist  does  not  wish  them  to  be  too  nu- 
merous ;  thus,  there  is  no  work  that  can  be  offered  to 
a  figure-painter  more  distasteful  to  his  artistic  feeling 
than  a  crowd  of  a  hundred  faces,  of  which  every  one 
must  be  a  portrait,  since  the  mere  attention  to  indi- 
viduality imperils  the  unity  of  the  whole  work.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  the  numbers  are  very  great  the  painter 
likes  them  to  be  far  past  any  possibility  of  counting,  so 
that  his  only  duty  may  be  to  represent  the  mystery 
and  infinity  of  the  innumerable.  Thus,  in  leaf-drawing, 
the  greatest  figure-painters  have  always  designed  a  few 
leaves  of  the  kinds  whose  forms  are  beautiful,  both 
pleasurably  and  successfully,  and  such  a  thing  as  a 
wreath  of  laurel  is  perfectly  agreeable  to  their  taste ; 
whilst,  on  the  other  hand,  the  great  landscape-painters 
have  delighted  in  the  immensity  of  foliage,  where  the 
leaf  is  nothing  individually  and  only  the  mass  is  seen. 
The  objection  to  the  horse-chestnut  is,  that  to  render  it 
perfectly  we  should  need  the  skill  of  the  figure-painter 
drawing  a  wreath  of  laurel,  and  the  skill  of  the  land- 
scape-painter sketching  the  masses  of  a  forest.  The 
leaves  are  so  large,  and  so  peculiar  in  their  form,  that 
they  cannot  be  treated  negligently,  for  the  negligent 
hand  would  commit  errors  in  shape  and  scale  that  the 
first  comer  would  at  once  detect ;  yet,  at  the  same  time, 
they  are  so  numerous,  that  any  attempt  to  draw  them 
individually,  as  you  would  the  twin-leaves  of  the  lily  of 
the  valley,  must  inevitably  spoil  the  unity  of  the  tree, 
not  to  speak  of  the  still  vaster  unity  of  a  picture.  The 


T  54       May  —  Glory  of  the  Horse-chestnut. 

consequence  of  this  is,  that  the  horse-chestnut  is  hardly 
ever  painted,  and  never  painted  quite  sufficiently  and  suc- 
cessfully. But  now,  having  stated  the  artistic  difficulty, 
let  us  turn  our  backs  for  the  moment  upon  all  picture 
exhibitions,  and,  forgetting  art  altogether,  go  straight  to 
the  world  of  Nature.  The  horse-chestnut,  in  the  earlier 
weeks  of  May,  is  a  sight  for  gods  and  men.  If  you  are 
well  outside  its  branches,  you  see  the  richly-painted 
flowers  rising  tier  above  tier  on  all  its  glorious  slope  up 
to  the  odorous  heights  that  belong  to  the  birds  and  the 
bees ;  if  you  are  under  its  shadow,  you  walk  in  a  soft 
green  light  that  comes  through  the  broad-spreading 
leaflets.  No  transparencies  are  finer  than  this  sun- 
illumined  canopy  of  green,  and  whilst  the  leaves  are 
quite  young  and  perfect,  they  are  cut  out  so  clearly 
as  to  have  a  grandly  decorative  effect.  Next,  as  to 
direction  of  line  and  surface,  this  tree  is  very  remark- 
able for  its  bold  and  decided  contrasts.  You  have  the 
curve  of  the  twig,  first  downwards  and  then  upwards, 
where  it  carries  the  flowers  at  its  extremity.  The  ten- 
dency of  the  flowery  spike  itself  is  to  be  vertical,  and 
the  large  leaves  spread  themselves  out  horizontally  and 
as  flatly  as '  possible  to  right  and  left.  The  flowers 
themselves  are  amongst  the  very  richest  of  spring 
blossoms.  The  coloring  of  the  petals  is  made  lively 
by  the  presence  of  white,  but  admirably  preserved  from 
crudity  by  dashes  of  red  and  yellow.  When  the  spikes 
or  cones  of  flowers  are  in  their  full  splendor,  the  horse- 
chestnut  reminds  one  of  a  magnificent  Christmas-tree, 
carrying  a  thousand  lighted  tapers  upon  its  branches, 


Ma}' —  Willow.  155 

but  with  the  difference  that  the  flowers  promise  life, 
and  the  renewal  of  life ;  whereas  when  the  pretty 
Christmas  tapers  are  lighted  upon  a  tree  they  are  a 
sign  that  its  end  is  near,  according  to  Andersen's  mel- 
ancholy story.  The  horse-chestnut  has  only  been  an 
European  tree  for  the  last  three  centuries,  and  is  one  of 
the  happiest  importations  from  Asia.  There  is  an  octa- 
gon of  them  at  the  Val  Ste.  Veronique,  and  the  eight 
brothers  are  all  equally  well  grown,  —  tradition  says,  that 
eight  boar-hounds  are  buried  under  them,  a  hound  under 
each  tree.  In  the  heat  of  summer  they  offer  a  delight- 
ful shade,  for  their  broad  leafage  makes  an  impenetrable 
dome  of  verdure. 


XXX. 

Willow  — Spanish  Chestnut  — Walnut  — Ash  and  Walnut  —  Beech  — 
Young  Beech-leaves  —  Light  through  them  —  Birch  —  Character  of 
Birch  —  It  bears  extremes  of  Heat  and  Cold  —  Birch-bark  —  Sap  of 
Birch  —  Prejudices  against  Trees  —  Abuse  of  Painters  who  study 
certain  Trees  —  Trees  and  Politics  —  The  Birch  always  Beautiful  — 
Willow  —  Spanish  Chestnut  —  Its  Strength  and  Longevity  —  Beauty 
of  Foliage  of  Chestnut  —  Oak  and  Chestnut  —  Bird-cherry  Prunus. 

THE  horse-chestnuts  are  amongst  the  earliest  of 
the  trees  in  leaf  and  flower.  The  willow,  as 
we  know,  is  earlier  still,  and  its  leaves  are  now  fully 
developed,  glittering  a  great  deal  in  the  sunshine,  when 
the  pleasant  May  breezes  move  them.  The  young  green 
leaves  of  the  Spanish  chestnut  are  rapidly  making  foli- 


156  May —  Walnut. 

age  now,  and  hide  already  the  heavy,  magnificent  stems, 
at  least  in  places.  The  young  leaves  of  the  walnut 
are  pleasant  upon  the  cool  gray  of  the  stems,  being 
of  an  exceedingly  warm  green,  that  differs  greatly 
from  the  crude  color  of  most  of  the  other  vegetation. 
The  reader  may  have  observed  how  peculiarly  rich  are 
the  dark  mosses  upon  walnuts,  but  the  glory  of  mosses 
is  not  in  the  time  of  leaves.  The  French  word  noyer 
comes  in  a  very  roundabout  way  from  the  Latin  nuxy 
a  nut,  so  that  noyer  means  the  nut-tree  par  excellence ; 
and  the  Latin  name  Juglans  comes  from  Jovis  glans, 
Jupiter's  nut,  as  the  fruit  of  this  tree  was  thought  good 
enough  for  the  father  of  the  gods.  The  ash  and  the 
walnut  come  on  very  nearly  together  in  the  spring, 
and  are  not  much  advanced  in  the  middle  of  May  ; 
the  beech  at  this  season  is  more  attractive,  from  the 
particularly  lovely  and  fresh  green  of  the  leaves,  which 
have  all  the  exquisiteness  of  Nature's  softest  and  pret- 
tiest new  things.  Their  green  is  delicately  pale  with- 
out being  crude,  and  they  have  downy  edges,  and 
are  so  soft  that  it  is  a  luxury  to  touch  them  ;  then, 
on  the  upper  side,  they  are  protected  by  a  gloss  of 
varnish.  I  spoke  of  the  transparence  of  the  horse- 
chestnut  leaves  ;  that  of  beech-leaves,  when  they  are 
young  and  fresh,  is  still  more  delicate  and  beautiful,  and 
the  light  under  them  is  like  what  one  fancies  the  pale 
sea-green  light  where  the  mermaids  live  in  submarine 
grottos  and  gardens. 

As  for  the  birches,  they  are  in  full  leaf  in  May,  as  if 
it  were  the  height  of  summer,  and  their  shining  silvery 


May — Character  of  Birch.  157 

stems,  so  brilliant  in  wintry  sunshine,  are  now  greatly 
overshadowed  by  their  foliage.  Nothing  can  be  more 
decided  than  the  character  of  the  birch,  and  the  leaves 
add  to  its  expression.  In  winter  it  is  simply  the  most 
graceful  of  trees,  but  in  summer  it  seems  nervously 
sensitive  and  easily  disquieted.  The  slightest  breath 
of  air  sets  it  all  in  a  flutter,  and  it  has  the  appearance 
of  the  extremest  delicacy  of  temperament.  However, 
in  this  case,  as  in  some  human  constitutions,  the  ap- 
pearance of  delicacy  is  in  the  highest  degree  deceptive, 
for  the  birch  is  gifted  with  singular  powers  of  resist- 
ance. I  do  not  believe  that  a  tree  can  be  mentioned 
which  bears  so  well  the  extremes  of  heat  and  cold.  It 
lives  high  on  the  sides  of  the  Alps  and  thrives  in  the 
terrible  Lapland  winter.  The  last  trees  near  the  polar 
ice  are  birches,  and  yet  at  the  same  time  the  birch  lives 
uninjured  through  the  burning  summers  of  Burgundy, 
and  does  not  apparently  suffer  from  a  temperature  that 
ripens  the  grape,  the  peach,  and  the  apricot.  The  bark, 
too,  that  looks  so  fragile  on  account  of  its  thin  white 
opiderm,  so  easily  torn  and  never  without  a  rent,  is 
jeally  of  considerable  thickness,  and  quite  remarkable 
amongst  vegetable  substances  for  its  all  but  unlimited 
durability.  The  tree  is  respectable  for  its  uses,  espe- 
cially for  the  uses  of  the  bark,  out  of  which  the  ingen- 
ious northern  races  have  contrived  to  make  many 
different  things,  including  canoes,  ropes,  roofs,  drinking- 
vessels,  shoes,  and  even  food,  whilst  that  product  of 
high  civilization  called  Russia  leather  is  tanned  with  it. 
The  abundant  sap  is  good  to  drink,  and  an  alcoholic 


158         May  —  Prejudices  against  Trees. 

beverage  is  prepared  from  it.  Haller  says  that  the  cat- 
kins yield  wax.  Therefore,  although  the  birch  does  not 
give  fine  timber  like  the  oak,  nor  abundant  edible  fruit 
like  the  walnut  and  what  are  commonly  called  the  fruit- 
trees,  it  is  still  one  of  man's  best  friends,  and  a  friend 
to  him  in  climates  of  such  rigorous  severity  that  the 
rich  southern  fruit-bearers  cannot  live  there.  The 
Southerner  may  know  the  birch  by  sight,  for  its  slender 
stem  gleams  here  and  there  in  his  forests  ;  but  he  does 
not  know  the  tree  as  the  Laplander  knows  it,  in  the 
hardship  and  adversity  of  a  life  so  little  cheered  by  the 
genial  gifts  of  Nature.  What  the  reindeer  is  to  him 
amongst  animals,  the  birch  is  amongst  trees. 

I  spoke  about  the  suitableness  of  the  horse-chestnut 
for  the  purposes  of  the  landscape-painter,  and  I  showed 
a  reason  why  artists  have  so  generally  abstained  from 
any  attempt  to  represent  the  horse-chestnut  in  their 
works.  But  if  there  are  reasonable  objections  to  trees 
that  may  be  beautiful  in  Nature,  there  are  also  unreason- 
able ones,  that  are  due  to  the  most  absurd  prejudices, — 
prejudices  so  absurd  that  the  existence  of  them  would 
be  absolutely  incredible  if  we  did  not  meet  them  from 
time  to  time  in  reading  and  in  conversation.  One  of 
the  clearest  and  most  outspoken  expressions  of  such 
prejudices  that  it  was  ever  my  lot  to  meet  with  occurred 
in  an  ultra-conservative  French  newspaper,  which  is 
taken  in  by  my  neighbor  the  curt,  and  I  made  an  ex- 
tract from  it  as  a  curiosity.  It  is  certain  that  many 
trees  —  and  the  graceful  birch  is  one  of  them  —  were 
systematically  neglected  by  the  landscape-painter  of 


May — Trees  arid  Politics.  159 

former  centuries,  and  have  only  of  late  years  had  their 
beauties  reflected  in  the  mimic  world  of  painting.  It 
is  not  probable  that,  in  illustrating  these  neglected  yet 
not  less  noble  species,  the  artists  of  this  generation  have 
had  any  feeling  of  hostility  to  the  trees  which  their  pre- 
decessors studied,  not  too  affectionately,  but  too  exclu- 
sively ;  they  have  simply  acted  with  that  independence 
of  tradition  and  that  large  desire  to  study  the  whole  of 
Nature  which  are  distinguishing  characteristics  of  our 
age  in  art,  as  in  science  and  in  literature.  But  now  see 
how  they  get  abused  and  ill-spoken  of  for  their  large- 
ness :  — 

*  It  looks  like  a  conspiracy.  The  painters  of  the  old  regime, 
the  artists  who  were  faithful  to  tradition,  sought  for  and  hon- 
ored certain  beautiful  and  aristocratic  trees,  and  considered 
them  alone  worthy  of  the  selection  and  the  efforts  of  art ;  the 
majestic  oak,  the  elegant  poplar,  the  pompous  pine,  and  the 
funereal  cypress. 

' "  Let  us  upset  tradition  !  "  say  the  realists.  "  Down  with 
the  trees  that  are  symbols  of  superannuated  and  odious  dis- 
tinctions !  Let  us  lift  up  the  humble  and  insignificant ;  let  us 
open  a  broad  way  to  the  new  '  couches  societies '  of  the  forests  ; 
there  is  the  truth,  the  strength,  and  the  honor  of  the  societies 
of  the  future  ! "  And  with  these  fine  reasonings  we  see  the 
rustic  apple-tree,  the  shivering  birch,  the  amphibious  willow, 
the  crude  and  hard  Spanish  chestnut,  come  out  of  their  enclo- 
sures, or  their  rocks,  to  display  themselves  outrageously  in  gilt 
frames  on  the  walls  of  palaces  and  galleries  that  were  never 
built  for  them  !  It  is  a  new  form  of  the  democracy  which  is 
about  to  overwhelm  us.  The  populace  of  the  woods  puts 
itself  on  the  level  of  the  populace  of  tint  faubourgs.  It  was 
not  enough  to  have  beheld  the  noisy  and  unsavory  crowds  cast 


1 60      May  —  The  Birch  always  Beautiful. 

themselves  upon  the  Louvre  and  come  to  Versailles  and  the 
Trianon  :  we  must,  in  addition,  endure  the  contact  of  the 
inferior  species  in  our  woods,  justly  rejected  to  the  second 
rank,  and  condemned  to  inferior  functions.'  * 

Now,  on  behalf  of  the  birch  especially,  I  protest 
energetically  against  this  comparison  with  the  lowest 
Parisian  democracy.  So  far  from  being  coarse  and  offen- 
sive, it  is  the  most  delicately  elegant  of  all  the  trees 
that  prosper  in  our  climate.  It  is  always  beautiful :  in 
winter  for  the  exquisite  refinement  of  its  ramification, 
only  to  be  followed  by  the  most  finished  and  accom- 
plished drawing ;  in  spring  and  summer  for  the  beauty 
of  its  cloud  of  light  foliage ;  in  autumn  for  its  color. 
The  writer  just  quoted  mentions  also,  and  witfi  equal 
disdain,  the  willow  and  Spanish  chestnut.  The  beauty 
of  the  natural  willow  is  very  little  known,  because  the 
farmers  almost  invariably  make  a  pollard  of  it,  which 
is  the  artificial  production  of  a  painful  and  horrible 
deformity.  Very  possibly  the  critic  may  have  supposed, 
as  many  people  do,  that  willows  are  born  so  ;  but  the 
truth  is,  that  if  you  only  have  the  kindness  to  let  the 
willow  alone  he  becomes  a  very  good  landscape  tree, 
and  there  are  species  which  cast  their  arms  out  with  a 
noble  freedom  and  grace,  having  also  a  fair  stature.  Of 
the  Spanish  chestnut  one  can  scarcely  exaggerate  the 
merits.  His  expression  is  that  of  sturdy  strength  :  his 
trunk  and  limbs  are  built,  not  like  those  of  Apollo,  but 

*  This  passage  is  quoted  from  'L'Union,'  Sept.  2,  1873.  It  is  a 
very  curious  example  of  a  political  spirit  invading  the  domain  of 
art. 


May — Oak  and  Chestnut.  161 

like  the  trunk  and  limbs  of  Hercules  ;  and  though  for 
his  inflexibility  he  loses  an  arm  now  and  then  in  the 
hurricane,  he  lives  to  be  a  Methuselah  amongst  trees, 
and  dynasties  rise  and  fall,  empires  are  built  and  de- 
molished, literatures  flourish  and  decay,  whilst  he  is  still 
green  in  his  old  place,  unheeding  the  lapse  of  time. 
His  foliage  is  magnificent  in  mass  and  beautiful  in  the 
individual  leaf  ;  it  is  always  worth  drawing  and  painting, 
both  for  its  lines  and  shadows  :  it  cannot  be  mean  or  in- 
significant. Whether  he  is  an  aristocratic  tree,  or  a  tree 
tainted  with  democracy,  I  am  not  subtle  enough  in  social 
distinctions  to  determine,  but  tradition  informs  us  that 
the  chestnut  of  Mount  Etna  once  sheltered  a  queen  and 
her  hundred  nobles,  and  is  called  for  this  reason  the 
'  Chestnut  of  the  Hundred  Horses.'  In  the  comparison 
of  the  chestnut  with  the  oak,  it  is  fair,  too,  that  we 
should  remember  what  animals  are  fed  by  each.  The 
oak  feeds  h^rds  of  swine,  but  the  chestnut  supplies  to 
great  multitudes  of  human  beings  a  food  as  agreeable 
as  it  is  nutritious.  There  are  countries  where  it  is  the 
staff  of  life,  and  its  alimentary  importance  is  greater 
than  that  of  any  other  tree  that  grows,  with  the  single 
exception  of  the  date. 

Amongst  the  shrubs  which  are  almost  trees,  and 
sometimes  fully  deserve  to  be  called  so,  let  me  not 
forget,  in  connection  with  the  month  of  May,  to  mention 
the  bird-cherry  primus,  of  which  we  have  some  excep- 
tional specimens  in  the  Val  Ste.  V^ronique,  where  they 
grow  to  a  height  of  sixteen  or  twenty  feet,  and  have  the 
most  perfectly  graceful  proportions.  I  have  often  much 

ii 


1 6  2  May  —  Broom . 

regretted  that  this  tree  was  not  more  common  in  this 
fully  developed  form  ;  ordinarily  it  is  a  mere  shrub  six 
or  eight  feet  high,  to  be  found  in  luxuriant  hedges.  As 
a  tree  it  shows  splendidly  in  blossom,  and  the  droop- 
ing racemes  of  flowers  are  not  .only  very  graceful,  but 
fill  the  air  with  a  delicious  odor. 


XXXI. 

Broom  —  Flaming  Flowers  of  Broom  —  Fortissimo  in  Color  —  Pansies  — 
Their  Variety  —  Heartsease  —  Poetry  in  the  Language  of  Science  — 
Daisy  —  Buttercup  —  Disagreeable  Scientific  Name  —  Ranunculus 
Aquatilis  —  Lousevvort  —  The  Rose  fortunate  in  her  Name  —  Name 
of  the  Horse-chestnut  —  Cuckoo-flower  —  Marsh  Caltha  —  Names 
of  the  Marsh  Caltha. 

IT  is  rarely  that  I  feel  myself  capable  of  any  thing 
like  hostility  towards  any  plant  that  grows  wild  in 
our  country,  but  there  is  one  of  them  —  the  broom  — 
which  tires  my  patience  a  little  in  its  flowering  season 
by  the  very  loudness  of  its  self-assertion.  At  all  other 
times  of  the  year  it  is  welcome  enough,  and  its  pleasant 
green  is  often  most  agreeable  to  the  eye  when  very 
little  green  of  a  cheerful  kind  is  to  be  found  upon  any 
thing  else  ;  but  really,  when  the  yellow  flowers  are  all 
ablaze,  I  feel  that  we  have  too  much  of  a  good  thing, 
and  are  positively  incapacitated  for  the  enjoyment  of 
delicate  color  by  this  all  but  intolerable  glare.  A 
strong  pure  color  of  this  kind  ought  not  to  be  sur- 


May  —  Flaming  Flowers  of  Broom.       163 

rounded  by  delicate  tertiary  colors,  because  it  kills 
them  at  once.  What  it  requires  is  the  neighborhood 
of  other  colors  pure  enough  to  hold  their  own  against 
it.  This  theory  is  fully  borne  out  by  the  coloring  of 
two  places  which  I  will  now  describe.  The  first  is  a 
beautiful  bit  of  river-shore,  very  delicately  tinted  and 
covered  with  pansies  and  violets,  with  a  mountainous 
distance  usually  in  tender  gray.  All  this  is  lovely  indeed 
till  the  broom  explodes  into  flames  of  chrome-yellow, 
but  after  that  what  becomes  of  such  a  thing  as  a  pansy  ? 
You  may  take  it  up,  of  course,  and  satisfy  yourself  by 
minute  inspection  that  it  is  a  beautiful  flower  of  pale 
parchment-yellow,  with  a  bold  touch  of  cadmium  on  the 
lower  lip  of  the  corolla,  and  seven  effective  little  black 
streaks ;  but  the  moment  you  look  at  it  on  the  ground 
you  can  see  nothing  but  gray.  The  other  place  is  the 
edge  of  an  abandoned  quarry,  where  the  red  earth  is  as 
hot  in  the  sunshine  as  it  can  be ;  and  as  you  look  up 
at  it  from  below,  the  edge  is  brought  against  the  intens- 
est  azure  of  the  sky.  Just  along  this  edge  grow  twenty 
or  thirty  magnificent  plants  of  broom,  and  between  the 
azure  of  the  sky  and  the  fiery  red  of  the  sun-lighted 
earth  below  they  hold  their  own  effectively  enough  with 
their  blaze  of  yellow,  but  are  unable  to  extinguish  either 
the  azure  or  the  red.  It  is  just  one  of  those  tournaments 
of  natural  colors  that  the  English  painters  seem  born 
to  enjoy,  and  the  French  to  run  away  from,  — a  spectacle 
to  delight  the  strong  natural  sense  in  its  naivett,  but  not 
either  the  tender  or  the  educated  sense.  It  answers  in 
music,  to  a  brass  band  playing  fortissimo  with  blare  of 


1 64  May  —  Pansies. 

trumpet  and  clash  of  cymbals  ;  it  answers,  also,  in  gas- 
tronomy, to  the  hottest  of  London  pickles,  of  which  one 
knows  not  which  element  is  most  fierce. 

I  mentioned  pansies  just  now,  but  did  not  stop  to 
dwell  upon  them.  They  have  several  notable  merits 
and  pleasant  associations.  One  of  their  merits  is  that 
of  variety.  Hardly  any  plant  in  a  wild  state  is  so 
various  as  the  pansy ;  other  plants  become  various  in 
the  hands  of  the  horticulturist,  who  obtains  curious 
novelties  by  selection  and  culture,  but  Nature  herself 
does  this  with  the  pansy,  and  you  have  it  purple,  or 
yellow,  or  whitish,  or  mixed  in  ways  that  it  would  be 
an  endless  business  to  describe.  Another  merit  is  that 
it  flowers  for  many  months  ;  unlike  the  broom,  which 
blazes  only  for  a  week  or  two,  and  is  then  completely 
extinguished,  like  a  fire  that  has  burned  itself  out. 
Then  one  likes  the  pansy  for  its  pretty  association  with 
kindly  and  affectionate  thought,  with  the  memory  of 
those  we  love  who  are  separated  from  us  by  distance. 
Pansy  is  the  French  word  pensee,  scarcely  even  cor- 
rupted, but  rather  written  phonetically  in  a  rude,  ap- 
proximative way ;  and  in  France  the  flower  penste  is 
connected  only  with  thoughts  of  a  tender  and  kindly 
nature.  Many  such  a  flower,  that  bloomed  in  a  bygone 
summer,  is  still  religiously  preserved  in  an  old  letter  or 
book,  and  never  looked  upon  without  a  moistening  of 
the  eyes.  So  Ophelia  said,  'There's  rosemary,  that's 
for  remembrance  :  pray  you,  love,  remember  ;  and  there 
is  pansies,  that's  for  thoughts.'  In  English  the  pansy 
violet  is  called  heartsease  also,  showing  in  another  form 


May  —  Daisy.  1 6  5 

the  close  connection  between  tender  human  feeling  and 
this  flower,  which  has  somehow  mysteriously  established 
itself.  Science,  of  course,  ignores  all  such  associa- 
tions, but  it  would  be  a  pity,  surely,  to  lose  and  forget 
them  altogether.  The  writer  of  a  lively  and  fanciful 
little  volume,  called  'La  Vie  des  Fleurs,'  is  indignant 
against  men  of  science  for  their  barbarity ;  yet  evqn  the 
men  of  science,  hard  as  their  hearts  may  be,  do  some- 
times wrap  up  a  little  kernel  of  poetry  in  the  rough  and 
repulsive  covering  of  their  Greek  erudition.  They  will 
not  call  a  pansy  a  pansy,  but  they  call  it  viola  tricolor ; 
and  some  of  them  have  fancied  that  viola  came  from 
"ov,  and  tov  from  the  heifer  lo,  which  fed  on  flowers  of 
this  kind.  So  difficult  is  it  to  shut  out  poetry  alto- 
gether from  language,  even  from  the  language  of  stern 
Science  herself ! 

There  are  some  exceptions,  but  the  rule  is  that  the 
popular  names  for  plants  are  either  charming  for  some 
sweet  rustic  association,  or  else  from  a  direct  reference 
to  the  deep  feelings  of  the  human  heart.  I  showed  how 
prettily  Chaucer  introduced  etymology  into  his  verse 
with  reference  to  '  the  daisie,  or  els  the  eye  of  the  day ; ' 
and  the  rustic  name  'buttercup,'  which  explains  itself 
without  analysis,  is  redolent  of  the  dairy  and  the  farm. 
The  common  French  name,  bouton  d'ory  has  reference 
to  the  flower  in  the  bud  ;  the  English  one,  to  the  flower 
full-blown.  And  now  think  of  the  learned  name,  Ra- 
nunculus acris ;  how  disagreeably  it  grates  upon  the  ear! 
The  popular  name  hits  at  once  upon  what  is  agreeable 
in  the  plant,  —  its  pretty  yellow  color ;  the  scientific  one 


1 66  May  —  Ranunculus  Aquatilis. 

refers  to  what  would  be  disagreeable  if  we  went  out  of 
our  way  to  try  it,  namely,  its  acrid  taste  ;  but  what  have 
we  to  do  with  its  taste,  I  wonder  ?  Just  in  the  same  way 
I  have  no  doubt  that  the  sweetest  of  pictures  would 
be  extremely  disagreeable  if  we  were  to  eat  it.  And 
ranunculus  comes  from  rana,  a  frog  or  toad,  —  a  strange 
connection  of  ideas  in  this  instance,  for  what  has  a  but- 
tercup particularly  to  do  with  frogs  ?  It  may  be  more 
appropriate  in  the  case  of  the  Ranunculus  aquatilis, 
because  that  plant  is  born  in  the  water  like  a  frog, 
and  passes  its  infancy  there  ;  after  which-  it  comes  up 
to  breathe  and  flower  in  the  upper  air,  as  frogs  come 
to  air  themselves  in  their  maturity.  A  plant  may,  how- 
ever, be  still  more  unfortunate  than  to  have  its  name 
associated  with  frogs,  or  even  toads,  for  there  is  one 
very  pretty  little  pinkish  flower,  common,  from  April 
to  June,  in  damp  meadows  and  woods,  which  takes  its 
name  from  a  minute  animal  celebrated  by  the  poet 
Burns,  who  discovered  it  on  a  lady's  bonnet  at  church, 
when  he  ought  to  have  been  thinking  of  something  else. 
Few  plants  are  prettier  than  the  common  pedicularis, 
with  its  delicate  wax-like  flowers  and  deeply-cut  leaves  ; 
and  it  is  a  robust  plant,  too,  with  a  strong  perennial 
root.  But  what  a  misfortune  to  be  called  lousewort,  and 
that  precisely  for  the  plant's  utility  and  efficacy  against 
lice !  As  men  afflicted  with  very  disagreeable  names 
often  take  care  to  change  them  (and  they  do  right),  so 
would  the  plants,  if  they  were  conscious  of  such  ill- 
luck.  Begging  the  reader's  pardon  for  introducing  the 
hackneyed  quotation  from  Shakspeare  about  the  rose 


May  —  The  Rose  fortunate  in  its  Name.    167 

smelling  as  sweetly  by  another  name,  I  would  just  ob- 
serve that  the  rose  has  been  remarkably  fortunate  in 
her  name,  wherever  it  is  derived  from  the  Latin.  It 
is  perfectly  euphonious  ;  it  calls  up  no  association  what- 
ever but  that  of  the  flower  itself,  except  in  the  mind  of 
some  learned  pundit,  who  thinks  it  may  have  some- 
thing to  do  with  the  Sanscrit  word  vrad,  which  means 
'  flexible ; '  and  wherever  either  rose  or  rosa  is  used  in 
poetry  it  always  comes  in  charmingly.  Now,  without 
referring  again  to  the  supremely  unfortunate  pedicu- 
lar is,  let  me  take  the  case  of  a  particularly  magnificent 
tree  which  has  occupied  us  a  little  quite  recently,  the 
horse-chestnut.  I  have  often  wished  that  awkward  com- 
pound word  could  be  exchanged  for  one  at  the  same 
time  more  convenient  and  better  sounding.  Imagine 
the  embarrassment  of  the  poets  if  the  rose  had  been 
called  the  horse-chestnut !  They  would  simply  have 
passed  it  in  silence.  It  is  fatal  to  the  celebrity  of  a 
flower  for  it  to  be  known  by  an  awkward  name,  even 
though  it  may  smell  as  sweetly  as  if  some  poet  had 
named  it  with  musical  syllables.  And  why  the  connec- 
tion with  the  horse  ?  Are  horses  fond  of  the  fruit  ? 
Most  probably  it  is  only  a  way  of  implying  that  it  is 
unfit  for  human  food.  I  might  have  mentioned,  when 
speaking  of  the  cuckoo  and  the  use  of  his  name  with 
the  arum,  which  the  people  call  cuckoo-pint,  that  another 
plant  is  also  dedicated  to  the  same  bird,  the  cuckoo- 
flower, or  meadow-bittercress.  This  plant  is  often  found 
in  great  abundance  in  dampish  meadows,  and  I  know  of 
one  place  near  a  little  stream  where  the  water  is  entirely 


1 68  May  —  Marsh  Caltha. 

bordered  with  its  beautiful  flowers,  which  in  that  place 
are  of  the  purest  white,  though  they  are  often  purplish. 
Whatever  the  cuckoo  may  have  to  do  with  this  elegant 
and  abundantly  flowering  plant,  it  is  one  of  the  glories 
of  advancing  spring,  and  where  you  find  it  you  are  very 
likely  to  find  the  marsh  caltha  not  far  off,  for  both  of 
them  like  damp  places.  The  botanical  name  Caltha  is 
an  allusion  to  the  basket  shape  of  the  flower,  which 
reminded  some  one  of  a  little  gilt  basket,  —  not  that  it 
is  much  more  like  a  basket  than  a  buttercup  is  ;  how- 
ever, a  name  was  got  for  it  in  this  way  from  /cd\a0os. 
The  French  name  for  it,  populage,  is  an  allusion  to  its 
habits.  The  flower  likes  damp  places  as  a  poplar  does, 
so  it  was  called  after  populus,  a  poplar ;  which  is  a  very 
singular  way  of  naming  a  plant,  for  similarities  of  struct- 
ure are  much  more  generally  noticed  than  similarities 
of  taste.  As  the  flower  is  much  larger  than  that  of  the 
buttercup,  and  equally  golden  in  color,  it  often  becomes 
of  considerable  importance  in  spring  foregrounds. 


May  —  Cones  of  Pine.  169 


XXXII. 

Cones  of  Pine  —  The  Author  audaciously  Plagiarizes — Quotation  from 
Sir  A.  Helps  —  A  Pine-wood  —  Sycamore-maple  —  'Les  Boeufs,'  by 
Pierre  Dupont  —  Holly  —  Flowers  of  Bird-cherry  and  Holly. 

JUST  before  the  middle  of  May  the  pines  are  begin- 
ning to  form  their  cones,  which,  at  a  little  distance, 
have  a  powerful  effect  upon  the  color.  At  this  time 
they  are  just  disengaging  themselves  from  the  brown 
covering,  and  are  of  a  light  and  cheerful  green  ;  how- 
ever, the  brown  still  dominates,  especially  at  a  distance. 
There  is  scarcely  any  thing  in  Nature  to  be  compared 
with  a  pine-wood,  I  think.  Now,  this  sentence  which 
I  have  just  written  is  not  my  own,  but  a  piece  of  down- 
right audacious  plagiarism  from  a  very  eminent  author, 
who  wrote  '  Companions  of  my  Solitude,'  and  whose 
charming  thoughts  have  become  companions  to  enliven 
the  solitude  of  many  other  persons  beside  himself ;  and 
in  that  book  any  ingenious  critic,  keen  to  detect  a 
larceny,  may  find  the  above  sentence  printed  word  for 
word.  I  ought,  no  doubt,  to  have  honestly  written 
it  as  a  quotation  with  inverted  commas,  but  as  the 
opinion  it  expresses  is  just  as  much  my  own  as  his  I 
prefer  to  appropriate  it  absolutely.  But  as  one  cannot 
exactly  steal  a  whole  paragraph  or  page,  I  will  now 
proceed  to  quote  a  passage  which  has  always  seemed 
to  me  one  of  the  most  complete  expressions  of  the  syl- 
van influence  on  the  mind  of  a  thinking  creature:  — 


170     May —  Quotation  from  Sir  A.  Helps. 

'I  remember  once  when,  after  a  long  journey,  I  was  ap- 
proaching a  city  ennobled  by  great  works  of  art,  and  of  great 
renown,  that  I  had  to  pass  through  what  I  was  told  by  the 
guide-books  was  most  insipid  country,  only  to  be  hurried  over 
as  fast  as  might  be,  and  nothing  to  be  thought  or  said  about  it. 
But  the  guide-books,  though  very  clever  and  useful  things  in 
their  way,  do  not  know  each  of  us  personally,  nor  what  we 
secretly  like  and  care  for.  Well,  I  was  speeding  through  this 
"  uninteresting "  country,  and  now  there  remained  but  one 
long  dull  stage,  as  I  read,  to  be  gone  through  before  I  should 
reach  the  much-wished-for  city.  It  was  necessary  to  stay  some 
time  (for  we  travelled  vetturino  fashion)  at  the  little  post- 
house,  and  I  walked  on,  promising  to  be  in  the  way  whenever 
the  vehicle  should  overtake  me.  The  road  led  through  a  wood, 
chiefly  of  pines,  varied,  however,  occasionally  by  other  trees. 

'  Into  this  wood  I  strayed.  There  was  that  indescribably 
soothing  noise  (the  Romans  would  have  used  the  word 
susurrus),  the  aggregate  of  many  gentle  movements  of  gentle 
creatures.  The  birds  hopped  but  a  few  paces  off,  as  I  ap- 
proached them;  the  brilliant  butterflies  wavered  hither  and 
thither  before  me  ;  there  was  a  soft  breeze  that  day,  and  the 
tops  of  the  tall  trees  swayed  to  and  fro  politely  to  each  other. 
I  found  many  delightful  resting-places.  It  was  not  all  dense 
wood ;  but  here  and  there  were  glades  (such  open  spots,  I 
mean,  as  would  be  cut  through  by  the  sword  for  an  army  to 
pass)  ;  and  here  and  there  stood  a  clump  of  trees  of  different 
heights  and  foliage,  as  beautifully  arranged  as  if  some  triumph 
of  the  art  of  landscape  had  been  intended,  though  it  was  only 
Nature's  way  of  healing  up  the  gaps  in  the  forest.  For  her 
healing  is  a  new  beauty. 

1  It  was  very  warm,  without  which  nothing  is  beautiful  to 
me ;  and  I  fell  into  the  pleasantest  train  of  thought.  The 
easiness  of  that  present  moment  seemed  to  show  the  pos- 
sibility of  all  care  being  driven  away  from  the  world  some 
day.  For  thus  peace  brings  a  sensation  of  power  with  it.  I 


June  —  A  Pine-wood.  171 

shall  not  say  what  I  thought  of,  for  it  is  not  good  always  to  be 
communicative  ;  but  altogether  that  hour  in  the  pine-wood  was 
the  happiest  hour  of  the  whole  journey,  though  I  saw  many 
grand  pictures  and  noble  statues,  a  mighty  river,  and  buildings 
which  were  built  when  people  had  their  own  clear  thoughts 
of  what  they  meant  to  do  and  how  they  would  do  it.'  * 

This  is  as  different  as  possible  from  Dante's  feeling 
about  woods,  but  then  the  English  writer  knew  that  he 
could  easily  get  out  of  his  pine-wood  to  catch  the 
vetturino  again  ;  and  in  England,  where  he  had  learned 
to  love  woods  as  places  to  meditate  in,  they  are  never 
large  enough  to  inspire  the  forest-fear  of  which  I  have 
spoken  elsewhere.  And  yet  the  pine  is  not  in  the 
spring-time  the  most  cheerful-looking  of  forest-trees, 
though  it  has  a  wholesome  influence  on  the  mind,  and 
fills  the  air  with  a  healthy  and  stimulating  odor.  The 
sycamore-maple  is  far  more  gay,  with  its  long  pendent 
racemes  of  greenish-yellow  flowers.  The  botanists  call 
this  family  the  Aceracecs,  because  the  wood  is  sturdy  ; 
and  the  reader  may  remember  how  in  that  magnificent 
rustic  song  '  Les  Bceufs,'  by  Pierre  Dupont,  the  poet 
begins  by  particularizing  the  woods  from  which  the 
plough  and  the  goad  are  made,  and  the  wood  used 
in  the  plough  is  sycamore :  — 

'  J'ai  deux  grands  boeufs  dans  mon  Stable, 

Deux  grands  boeufs  blancs  marque's  de  roux ; 
La  charrue  est  en  bois  d'erable 
L'aiguillon  en  branche  de  houx.' 

*  '  Companions  of  my  Solitude.'    By  Sir  ARTHUR  HELPS.     Roberts 
Brothers'  Ed.  p.  77. 


172  June —  The  Classic  Pastorals. 

The  holly,  that  served  for  the  goad,  flowers  nearly  at 
the  same  time  with  the  sycamore,  but  not  at  all  con- 
spicuously, though  its  flowers  are  visible.  I  may  just 
observe  what  a  great  difference  there  often  is  in  pictorial 
importance  between  the  flowers  and  fruit  of  the  same 
plant.  In  some  plants,  as,  for  example,  the  bird-cherry 
tree,  the  flowers  are  glorious,  and  the  berry  of  scarcely 
any  visible  importance ;  in  others,  as  the  holly,  the 
flowers  would  almost  escape  the  notice  of  anybody  but 
a  botanist,  whilst  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  paying  atten- 
tion to  the  fruit. 


XXXIII. 

The  Classic  Pastorals  —  Inferiority  of  the  Classical  Writers  in  Passion 
for  Natural  Beautv  —  Superiority  of  Chaucer  to  Virgil  —  Virgil's 
laconic  Way  —  Chaucer's  abounding  Eloquence  —  Virgil  never 
intense  when  speaking  of  Nature  —  Virgil's  blending  of  Human 
Interest  with  Nature  —  How  Virgil  particularizes  —  He  cared  for 
Nature  independently  of  Personal  Ease  and  Enjoyment  —  Catho- 
licity of  Taste  in  Virgil  —  His  preference  of  Olive  to  Willow  —  Affec- 
tionate Comparison  of  Species — True  Classic  Love  for  Nature 
contrasted  with  Wilful  Ignorance  of  False  Modern  Classicism  — 
Facility  of  brief  poetical  Word-painting  —  A  little  Virgilian  Picture 
—  Virgil's  Coloring  —  Much  effect  with  little  Labor  —  Excessive 
Brevity  of  Classical  Writers  —  Their  Laborious  Corrections  —  Per- 
manent Interests  of  Sylvan  Life  —  Virgil's  prospective  Sense  of 
Duration  in  Sylvan  Things  —  The  Anchorite  and  the  Cicada. 

I  HAD  reserved  the  reading  of  the  classic  pastorals 
for  the  full  bloom  of  leafy  summer,  hoping  that 
in  our  retirement  we  might  have  better  access  to  the 
thoughts  of  the  poets  when  the  green  light  fell  upon 


June —  Superiority  of  Chaucer  to  VirgiL    173 

their  pages  through  the  forest-leaves,  and  every  thing 
around  us  might  illustrate  their  sylvan  imagery.  So 
when  June  came  I  seldom  went  out  without  some  old 
Idyllist  in  my  pocket,  and  sometimes  Alexis  read  with 
me,  and  often  I  read  alone. 

One  general  result  of  these  readings  remains  with 
me,  and  that  is  a  strong  sense  of  the  inferiority  of  the 
classical  writers  in  the  passion  for  natural  beauty,  I 
will  not  say  to  the  moderns,  who  have  made  a  trade 
of  this  passion,  just  as  landscape-painters  do,  but  to 
the  poets  of  the  early  renaissance,  who  wrote  simply 
from  the  heart,  and  had  no  idea  of  making  poetical 
capital  from  a  business-like  observation  of  Nature. 
There  is  not  the  slightest  comparison,  for  example, 
between  Virgil  and  Chaucer  with  respect  to  wealth  of 
landscape  description,  either  in  quantity  or  passion,  — 
Chaucer  is  so  much  the  more  opulent  and  powerful , 
poet  of  the  two  in  every  thing  that  relates  to  external 
Nature.  And  yet  when  I  mention  Virgil,  I  mention 
a  poet  highly  distinguished  amongst  the  ancients  for 
this  very  delight  in  Nature ;  a  poet  who  certainly  did 
love  sylvan  things  with  a  rare  degree  of  affection,  and 
that  not  simply  for  his  own  physical  enjoyment  of 
pleasant  shade  or  thirst-assuaging  fountain,  or  fruit 
delicious  in  the  mouth,  but  for  their  own  beauty  out- 
side of  human  needs.  But  how  laconically  he  expresses 
this  feeling !  how  little  he  dwells  upon  it !  A  few 
neatly-ordered  words  suffice;  the  poet  thinks  he  has 
said  all  that  is  to  be  said,  or  need  be,  and  there  is  an 
end.  Chaucer,  on  the  other  hand,  whenever  he  begins 


1 74    June  —  Chaucer  s  'abounding  Eloquence. 

to  talk  about  his  enjoyment  of  Nature,  hardly  knows 
how  or  when  to  stop  ;  he  has  the  abounding  eloquence 
of  a  warm  and  earnest  enthusiasm,  the  freshness  and 
\/  variety  of  his  ideas  and  sensations  suggest  an  equal 
variety  and  abundance  of  poetical  expression  ;  he  tries 
hard  to  utter  all  that  is  in  him,  very  frequently  finds 
that  he  has  not  yet  succeeded  to  his  mind,  and  tries 
again  and  again,  but  without  effacing  the  previous 
attempts,  so  that  there  is  a  string  of  them  one  after 
another.  Hence  Virgil  may  be  quoted  easily  ;  there 
are  passages  of  his,  not  more  than  three  words  long, 
which  afford  excellent  quotations  and  good  subjects 
for  literary  disquisition  :  whereas  to  quote  Chaucer  is 
difficult  in  the  extreme,  for  he  leads  you  down  to  the 
bottom  of  the  page,  and  over  the  leaf,  before  you  have 
time  to  pause.  Of  course  I  am  clearly  aware  that  a 
comparison  of  this  kind  cannot  be  made  with  justice 
unless  we  duly  consider  the  reserve  which  was  a  part 
of  the  classical  temper,  and  the  remarkable  tendency 
to  think  'it  is  enough/  which  formed  habits  of  work 
in  classic  artists  so  directly  opposed  to  the  careless 
fecundity  of  the  mediaeval  ones,  and  to  the  money- 
getting  productiveness  of  the  moderns.  It  is  quite 
evident  that  if  Virgil,  whilst  retaining  this  classical 
reserve,  had  been  imbued  with  Chaucer's  passion  for 
flowers  and  birds,  and  spring  mornings  in  the  woods 
and  by  streams,  he  would  have  concentrated  the  utter- 
ance of  it  into  a  tenth  of  the  space  that  Chaucer  covered 
with  his  facile  verse ;  but  then  the  utterance  would  have 
been  all  the  more  intense  and  powerful  for  that  very 


June —  Virgil  never  intense.  175 

concentration,  whereas  what  we  have  of  Virgil's  is 
delicate,  but  never  intense,  —  I  mean,  when  he  speaks 
of  Nature.  He  is  always  pleased  to  be  in  the  woods, 
and,  whilst  he  is  telling  the  story  of  this  or  that  poetical 
shepherd,  the  landscape  is  constantly  seen  by  little 
glimpses  behind  and  between  the  figures ;  but  it  is 
painted  with  a  quiet  affection,  no  more,  and  an  affection 
that  is  immediately  satisfied.  One  thing,  however,  is  in 
the  highest  degree  delightful  in  Virgil,  and  that  is  the 
lovely  blending  of  human  interests  with  his  observations 
upon  inanimate  nature ;  exactly  like  the  wreathing  of 
leaves  and  branches  about  fair  or  mighty  human  limbs, 
that  occurs  so  frequently  in  the  work  of  the  great  figure- 
painters.  Thus  when  Gallus  says,  in  the  tenth  Eclogue, 
that  he  will  go  and  suffer  in  the  woods,  the  young  trees 
are  associated  with  his  passion  in  a  way  that  could  have 
occurred  to  no  other  poet :  — 

'  Certum  est  in  silvis,  inter  spelaea  ferarum 
Malle  pati,  tenerisque  meos  incidere  amores 
Arboribus  :  crescent  illae  ;  crescetis,  amores.' 

'  My  mind  is  made  up  to  prefer  suffering  in  the  woods 
ctmongst  the  dens  of  wild  beasts,  and  to  engrave  my  loves 
upon  the  saplings  :  the  saplings  grow  — grow  (with  them,  my) 
loves.' 

This  is  ingenious,  and  affectionate  also  ;  and  please 
observe  the  thoroughly  classical  brevity  of  the  last  four 
words.  Here,  however,  we  have  only  the  young  trees 
in  general,  and  we  know  that  it  is  one  of  the  marks  of 
true  affection  to  particularize,  to  distinguish  the  qualities 
belonging  especially  to  each  of  the  things  or  persons 


176       June  —  How.  Virgil  particularizes. 

that  we  love.  Well,  Virgil  particularizes  also,  just  like 
a  modern  landscape-painter;  and  I  take  time  to  make 
this  observation  in  passing,  that  when  the  pseudo- 
classical  school  opposed  itself  so  strongly  to  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  species  of  trees  which  the  modern 
school  of  landscape  felt  to  be  essential,  it  would  have 
been  easy  to  reply  that  their  own  idol,  Virgil,  did  ex- 
actly the  same  thing  in  poetry  that  the  new  school 
was  humbly  endeavoring  to  do  in  the  sister  art  of 
painting.  Thus,  in  the  seventh  Eclogue,  Thyrsis  says, 
just  at  the  last :  — 

*  Fraxinus  in  silvis  pulcherrima,  pinus  in  hortis, 
Populus  in  fluviis,  abies  in  montibus  aids : 
Saepius  at  si  me,  Lycida  formose,  revisas, 
Fraxinus  in  silvis  cedat  tibi,  pinus  in  hortis.' 

This  illustrates  at  the  same  time  both  the  two  quali- 
ties that  I  have  been  speaking  of,  for  not  only  are  the 
trees  mentioned  specially,  but  they  are  connected  with 
a  human  interest :  — 

*  The  ash  is  most  beautiful  in  the  woods,  the  pine  in  gar- 
dens, the  poplar  by  rivers,  the  fir  on  lofty  mountains  ;  but 
if  thou  earnest  to  see  me  oftener,  beautiful  Lycidas,  the  ash 
would  yield  to  thee  in  the  woods,  the  pine  in  gardens.' 

Nor  would  our  analysis  of  the  Virgilian  spirit  in  this 
passage  be  complete  without  the  observation,  that  it 
affords  evidence  against  the  theory  that  the  ancients 
could  see  no  beauty  in  Nature  except  such  as  was  con- 
nected with  personal  ease  or  physical  enjoyment.  The 
allusion  to  gardens  is  brief  and  cursory  in  the  extreme, 
whilst  there  is  no  mention  of  what  are  popularly  called 


June —  Catholicity  of  Taste  in  Virgil.     177 

fruit-trees ;  but  the  poet  is  clearly  alive  to  the  beauty 
of  the  ash,  to  that  of  the  poplar,  —  very  different  kinds 
of  sylvan  beauty,  —  whilst  it  may  be  especially  observed 
that  the  faculty  of  perceiving  any  thing  to  admire  in 
the  'fir  on  the  lofty  mountains'  has  been  supposed 
to  be  exclusively  modern.  Yet,  although  Virgil  had 
the  catholicity  of  taste  which  appreciates  many  different 
forms  of  beauty,  he  had,  like  all  true  lovers  of  Nature, 
his  own  little  private  preferences,  which  it  is  interesting 
to  note  when  an  accident  of  his  verse  reveals  them. 
For  example :  he  preferred  the  olive-tree  to  the  willow, 
—  a  preference  which,  when  I  think  of  the  perfect 
beauty  of  willows  that  have  never  been  mutilated  by 
farmers,  I  find  it  difficult  to  share,  though  it  is  possible 
that  a  poet  living  so  far  south  may  have  had  in  his 
mind  the  peculiar  grandeur  of  very  ancient  olive-trees, 
and  the  value  of  their  pale  foliage,  which  he  especially 
notices,  in  scenes  pervaded  by  the  Italian  azure  of  sky 
and  Mediterranean  bays  :  — 

*  Lenta  salix  quantum  pallenti  cedit  olivae, 
Puniceis  humilis  quantum  saliunca  rosetis  ; 
Judicio  nostro  tantum  tibi  cedit  Amyntas.' 

*  As  much  as  the  pliant  willow  is  inferior  to  the  pale  olive- 
tree  ;  as  much  as  the  humble  lavender  is  inferior  to  red  roses  ; 
so  much,  in  our  opinion,  is  Amyntas  inferior  to  thee.' 

Every  lover  of  Nature  has  preferences  of  this  kind, 
and  the  poet  supposes  that  the  gods  must  have  them 
also  ;  thus  he  reminds  us  that  the  vine  was  especially 
beloved  by  Bacchus,  the  poplar  by  Hercules,  the  myrtle 
by  beautiful  Venus,  and  ( his  laurel'  by  Phoebus.  But 

13 


1 7  8  June — Affectionate  Comparison  of  Species. 

1  Phyllis  amat  corylosj  —  Phyllis  loves  hazels,  and  so 
long  as  Phyllis  shall  love  hazels  neither  the  myrtle  nor 
Apollo's  laurel  shall  surpass  them. 

This  comparison  of  species  is  full  of  affection,  and 
not  a  narrow  affection  either  ;  for  though  the  poet  may 
have  had  an  especial  liking  for  the  olive,  and  probably 
for  the  hazel  also  (there  is  reason  to  suppose  that 
Phyllis  expresses  a  taste  of  the  poet  himself),  he  frankly 
tells  us  that  other  trees  have  been  preferred  by  other 
personages,  and  gives  each  the  honor  that  is  its  due. 
This  largeness  is  strikingly  different  from  a  bigoted 
narrowness  on  this  very  subject,  which  is  not  unfre- 
quently  met  with  in  our  own  time,  and  of  which  I  have 
lately  given  a  very  striking  example.  Here  is  evi- 
dence sufficient,  though  in  laconic  passages,  that  the 
Roman  poet  had  a  love  for  sylvan  Nature,  which  if  not 
so  cultivated  by  attention  to  minute  detail  as  that  of 
a  modern  botanist,  or  a  landscape-painter  of  the  botani- 
cal school,  still  paid  far  more  attention  to  detail  than 
the  wilfully  ignorant  criticism  of  the  false  modern  clas- 
sical school,  which  held  the  almost  inconceivable  the- 
ory that  trees  were  to  be  regarded  simply  as  trees, 
without  distinguishing  their  species.  I  well  know  that 
we  are  strongly  tempted,  on  the  faith  of  a  word  here 
and  there,  to  give  credit  to  an  ancient  author  for  much 
more  knowledge  and  much  keener  perception  than  he 
probably  ever  possessed  ;  and  that  it  is  one  of  the  com- 
monest illusions  of  our  complex  intellectual  civilization 
to  forget  the  simplicity  of  sight  and  thought  in  which 
men  Hved  long  ago,  and  to  attribute  to  them  our  own 


June — A  Little  Virgilian  Picture.       179 

habits  and  ideas  from  a  respectful  unwillingness  to 
acknowledge  any  inferiority  in  them:  but  the  exact 
truth  about  their  ways  of  thinking  is  still  ascertain- 
able.  It  is  clear  that  Virgil  had  much  of  the  sort  of 
vision  which  belongs  to  a  modern  painter.  Let  us  not 
exaggerate  this  praise :  there  is  an-  immense  difference 
between  merely  writing  down  the  words  'fraxinus  in 
silvis  pulcherrima,'  and  painting  an  ash-tree  well,  so  as 
to  make  us  see  that  it  is  '  pulcherrima.'  It  is  easy  to  say 
that  a  bull  has  a  white  side  and  that  the  herbage  he  eats 
is  'pale;'  but  it  requires  an  incomparably  higher  culture 
of  the  faculty  which  perceives  color  to  paint  the  white 
bull  and  the  pale  herbage  in  the  right  tints.  However, 
it  may  be  affirmed  with  truth  that  Virgil  had  the  faculty 
of  pictorial  sight  in  the  rudimentary  state,  because  he 
takes  notice  of  the  things  that  painters  give  their  lives 
to  study ;  and  it  is  perfectly  conceivable,  that  had  he 
lived  in  our  own  time  he  might  have  become  a  painter 
of  rustic  subjects,  equal  to  Troy  on  in  breadth  and  repose, 
superior,  to  him  in  delicacy.  Here,  in  two  lines,  is  a 
picture  that  really  reminds  one  of  Troyon,  —  it  was  the 
recollection  of  these  very  verses  that  made  me  mention 
that  painter  just  now,  —  a  picture  as  highly  finished  as  it 
can  be  in  so  brief  a  space,  the  subject  being  a  bull  with 
landscape  adjuncts,  exactly  the  kind  of  subject  that 
Troyon  painted  with  so  much  simplicity  and  truth :  — 

*  Ille,  latus  niveum  molli  fultus  hyacintho 
Ilice  sub  nigra  pallentes  ruminat  herbas.' 

'  He,  with  his  snow-white  side  resting  upon  the  soft  hyacinth, 
ruminates  the  pale  herbage  under  the  black  ilex.' 


180     June  —  Much  Effect  with  little  Labor. 

You  have  the  white  bull,  the  dark  ilex,  and  then  the 
middle  tint  of  herbage,  which  is  called  pale  by  com- 
parison with  the  tree.  'Black'  is  merely  the  popular 
term  for  dark,  whether  dark  green  or  dark  purple  ;  it  is 
still  constantly  used  in  this  way  in  different  languages, 
especially  with  reference  to  trees :  thus  we  have  the 
black  poplar,  the  black  forest,  the  black  islands,  &c. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  another  color  is  sug- 
gested by  the  simple  mention  of  the  hyacinth,  and 
there  is  a  delicate  hint  of  pity  for  the  flower  crushed 
under  the  weight  of  the  animal;  but  this  belongs  to 
poetry  rather  than  to  painting.  I  do  not  believe  that 
any  artist  in  words  ever  painted  so  complete  a  picture 
of  animal  and  landscape  with  so  few  touches.  You 
have  color  (viiveum,  hyacintho),  you  have  texture  (molli), 
and  you  have  light  and  shade  (nigra  pallentes).  What- 
ever may  be  wanting  in  the  tiny  masterpiece  is  supplied 
at  once  by  our  own  memory  and  imagination,  — form 
is  only  indicated  by  the  mention  of  the  kind  of  animal 
and  the  kinds  of  plants  ;  but  then  we  remember  imme- 
diately what  is  the  shape  of  a  bull,  of  an  ilex,  and  of  a 
hyacinth. 

To  appreciate  the  full  artistic  quality  of  such  a  per- 
fect bit  of  work  as  this,  it  is  enough  to  place  beside  it 
any  piece  of  common  descriptive  verse  having  a  similar 
subject.  But  whilst  thus  heartily  acknowledging  Virgil's 
peculiar  gift,  and  the  art  with  which  he  so  skilfully  used 
it,  a  modern  critic  can  hardly  escape  some  feeling  of 
surprise  at  what  seems  to  him  the  excessive  brevity 
of  the  classical  writers.  They  said  what  they  had  to 


June  —  Interests  of  Sylvan  Life.         181 

say  so  well,  that  the  wonder  is  they  were  not  tempted 
to  say  more,  or,  if  not  more  on  the  same  subjects,  that 
they  did  not  treat  other  subjects  in  the  same  manner. 
Their  inspiration  does  not  seem  to  have  been  frequent 
in  its  recurrence,  or  of  long  duration  when  it  came.  We 
know  that  they  corrected  laboriously,  and  their  correc- 
tions, like  those  of  a  sculptor  on  the  marble,  would  result 
(with  their  taste)  in  a  diminution  of  the  mass.  This 
being  so,  it  is  a  subject  of  special  regret  that  so  much 
of  the  Georgics  should  have  been  occupied  with  mere 
receipts  and  advice  for  the  use  of  farmers. 

The  interests  of  the  sylvan  life  are  very  much  the 
same  in  all  ages,  the  differences  which  time  has  brought 
about  being  more  in  the  arms  and  instruments  we  use 
than  in  the  objects  of  our  study  or  the  manner  of  our 
enjoyment.  The  ancients  had  not  our  guns  and  micro- 
scopes, but  they  hunted  and  botanized  after  their  own 
more  primitive  fashion,  chasing  the  same  animals,  and 
gathering  the  same  plants.  In  the  fifth  Eclogue  there 
is  a  prospective  sense  of  the  duration  of  sylvan  things 
which  expresses  itself  very  strongly  in  two  verses :  — 

'  Dum  juga  mentis  aper,  fluvios  dum  piscis  amabit, 
Dumque  thymo  pascentur  apes,  dum  rore  cicadae  ; 
Semper  honos,  nomenque  tuum,  laudesque  manebunt.' 

1  So  long  as  the  wild  boar  shall  love  the  ridges  of  the  hills, 
or  the  fish  the  streams;  so  long  as  the  bees  shall  feed  on 
thyme,  or  the  cicada  drink  the  dew;  thy  name  and  honor 
shall  remain.' 

Well,  here,  within  so  short  a  distance  of  the  Val  Ste. 
Veronique,  there  are  wild  boars  on  the  ridges  of  the 


1 82     June —  The  Anchorite  and  the  Cicada. 

hills,  there  are  fish  in  the  clear  streams,  and  the  bees 
feed  on  the  wild  thyme,  and  the  cicada  drinks  the  dew. 
So  permanent  are  sylvan  things,  that  Virgil  described 
prospectively  all  these  neighbors  of  mine  just  nineteen 
hundred  years  ago.  Neighbors,  indeed  !  though,  per- 
haps, it  is  not  very  neighborly  of  me  to  shoot  the  wild 
boars,  and  catch  the  trout,  and  take  the  honey  from  the 
bees  ;  but  my  conscience  is  clear  as  to  the  cicada,  —  her 
I  have  never  injured  or  robbed,  not  being  able  to  see 
my  advantage  in  so  doing  ;  and,  therefore,  I  will  call 
her  ' neighbor'  without  remorse.  As  we  have  been 
quoting  Latin  lately,  I  may  recall  what  an  anchorite  of 
the  desert  said  with  a  true  affection  for  this  humble 
creature,  that  he  had  learned  in  the  depth  of  his  soli- 
tude, —  '  Soror,  arnica  mea,  cicada  / '  —  *  My  sister,  and 
friend,  cicada  ! '  I  never  see  one  of  them  without  think- 
ing of  this,  and  loving  that  holy  anchorite. 


June —  Theocritus.  183 


XXXIV. 

Theocritus  —  Greek,  French,  and  English  —  The  real  Subject  of  Greek 
Idyl  and  Roman  Eclogue  —  The  Idyllic  Shepherds  — Their  Immoral- 
ity—  A  Protest  —  Nature  of  the  Idyl  —  Few  Landscape  Pictures  in 
the  great  Idyllists  —  Method  of  the  Idyllists  —  Their  simplest  Art 
—  Cunning  of  the  Idyllists  in  describing  Things  —  The  pervading 
Sylvan  Spirit  —  Virgil  and  Theocritus  compared  —  Personal  Expe- 
rience of  Theocritus  —  His  lively  Description  of  Repose  near  a  Coun- 
try House  —  Description  by  Theocritus  —  Touches  of  Reality  — The 
true  Idyllists  call  every  thing  by  its  own  Name. 

THERE  are  not  many  separate  landscape  studies 
in  Virgil's  idyllic  poetry ;  there  are  fewer  still  in 
that  of  Theocritus.  Greek  and  Roman  remained  within 
the  rigid  limits  of  their  art ;  and  perhaps  the  Greek,  by 
the  quality  of  his  language,  even  exceeded  the  Roman  in 
that  brevity  that  we  approach  with  so  much  difficulty 
when  we  care  'to  rival  it  at  all.  So  Theocritus,  in  the 
twenty-fifth  Idyl,  speaks  of  the  hill-tops  with  many 
springs,  TroXuTr/Sa/eo?  a/cpcopeir)1?,  which  the  best  French 
translation  calls  collines  aux  sources  nombreuses,  —  how 
awkwardly !  and  which  could  not  be  adequately  trans- 
lated into  English  without  borrowing  Tennyson's  ex- 
pression, '  many-fountained/ 

'  Dear  mother  Ida,  many-fountained  Ida,' 

which  is  itself  an  exotic  form,  borrowed  from  the  very 
Greek  word  that  Theocritus  used,  taken  evidently  from 
Homer,  who  uses  it  in  connection  with  Ida. 

But  the  real  subject  or  motive  of  the  Greek  idyl  and 


184  June —  The  Idyllic  Shepherds. 

of  the  Roman  eclogue,  the  imitation  of  it,  is  not  external 
nature ;  it  is  the  life  of  man  in  Nature,  of  man  as  an 
animal,  or  lower  than  any  other  animal,  with  pretty  hills 
and  foliage  for  a  background,  and  flower-bearing,  grassy 
lands  to  play  in.  It  is  strange  that  an  immorality  so 
disgusting,  so  inconceivable  by  us,  should  ever  have 
been  united  with  any  simple  and  hearty  love  of  Nature, 
and  it  is  the  stranger  that  the  immorality  itself  was  of 
a  kind  completely  out  of  harmony  with  natural  instinct 
and  law :  but  the  truth  is,  that  in  the  measure  of  their 
powers  these  ancient  poets,  when  they  wrote  idyls,  set 
themselves  to  paint  animal  pictures  with  rustic  back- 
grounds, the  animal  being  sometimes  a  bull,  sometimes 
a  goat,  but  more  frequently  man.  We  have  only  to 
read  these  poems  to  perceive  at  once  how  inevitable  it 
was  for  the  ancients  to  arrive  at  the  conception  of  the 
satyr.  The  sentimental  shepherds  whom  they  celebrate 
are  morally  so  much  beneath  what  we  charitably  hope 
is  the  common  human  level,  that  it  is  really  a  relief  and 
a  necessary  transition  to  pass  from  them  to  the  honestly 
semi-bestial  condition  of  half-animal,  in  which  we  sec 
at  once  that  responsibility  has  been  diminished  by 
monstrosity  of  organization.  Had  these  poets  simply 
taken  man  as  a  part  of  Nature  and  described  his  passions 
naturally,  however  frankly,  we  might  have  read  their 
descriptions  with  the  indulgence  that  we  feel  for  savages 
in  the  South  Sea  Islands  ;  but  their  groves  are  like  the 
Cities  of  the  Plain,  and  one  desires  for  them,  if  not  the 
consuming  fire,  at  any  rate  the  oblivion  of  Asphaltites, 
—  that  dreariest,  bitterest  of  seas,  whose  waters  lie  for 


June  —  Nature  of  the  Idyl  1 85 

ever,  and  so  heavily  —  heaviest  of  all  waters  —  on  a  vale 
not  morally  more  impure  than  the  Arcadia  of  classic 
imagination.* 

I  know  that  morality  is  not  art,  and  that  as  we 
began  to  talk  of  these  things  simply  from  the  artistic 
point  of  view,  it  is  a  complete  change  of  key  to  pass 
into  moral  criticism.  But  it  was  impossible  for  me  to 
speak  of  the  old  idyllic  poetry  at  all  without  this  pro- 
test ;  and  now  that  the  protest  has  got  itself  fairly 
uttered  I  am  free  to  return  to  art. 

The  nature  of  the  idyl  has  been  accurately  defined 
by  a  recent  English  writer  on  Greek  poetry.  '  The 
name  of  the  idyl,'  he  says,  'sufficiently  explains  its 
nature.  It  is  a  little  picture.  Rustic  or  town  life, 
legends  of  the  gods,  and  passages  of  personal  experi- 
ence, supply  the  idyllist  with  subjects.  He  does  not 
treat  them  lyrically,  following  rather  the  rules  of  epic 
and  dramatic  composition.  Generally  there  is  a  nar- 
rator, and  in  so  far  the  idyl  is  epic ;  its  verse,  too,  is 
the  hexameter.  .  .  .  Perhaps  the  plastic  arts  deter- 
mined the  direction  of  idyllic  poetry,  suggesting  the 
name  and  supplying  the  poet  with  models  of  compact 
and  picturesque  treatment.  In  reading  the  Idyls  it 

*  Thus  I  have  no  hesitation  in  preferring  the  twenty-seventh  idyl 
of  Theocritus  to  the  twenty-third,  notwithstanding  the  frank  'license 
of  the  one  and  the  decent  language  of  the  other.  Indeed  I  think  that 
the  twenty-third  idyl  of  Theocritus,  and  some  of  Virgil's,  are  the  mosi 
essentially  and  perfectly  abominable  things,  from  the  moral  point  of 
view,  in  literature.  Everybody  knows  this  who  has  read  them,  but 
somehow  these  authors  escape  the  stigma  of  immorality  because  of  their 
sacred  character  as  classics.  The  vorst  of  modern  literature  is  purity 
itself  in  comparison, 


1 86  June  —  Method  of  the  Idyllists. 

should  never  be  forgotten  that  they  are  pictures,  so 
studied  and  designed  by  their  authors :  they  ought  to 
affect  us  in  the  same  way  as  the  bas-reliefs  and  vases 
of  Greek  art,  in  which  dramatic  action  is  presented  at 
a  moment  of  its  evolution,  and  beautiful  forms  are 
grouped  together  with  such  simplicity  as  to  need  but 
little  story  to  enhance  their  value.'  * 

Although,  as  I  have  already  observed,  the  landscape 
pictures  that  can  be  detached  are  rare  in  the  great 
idyllists,  they  continually  associate,  as  we  have  seen  in 
Virgil,  the  material  of  landscape  with  the  human  life, 
which  they  paint  in  their  little  compositions  ;  and  so 
closely,  that  if  you  cannot  separate  the  landscape  from 
the  figures,  so  it  is  hardly  possible,  on  the  other  hand, 
to  separate  the  figures  from  the  landscape.  Thus,  in 
his  first  idyl,  Theocritus  begins  with  a  pine-tree  close 
to  fountains,  and  speaks  of  its  whispering  or  rustling, 
tyiOvpicriJba,  instantaneously  connecting  this  vague  music 
with  the  music  of  a  goatherd  playing  upon  his  pipe  ; 
whilst  the  goatherd  himself,  in  answer,  connects  the 
sound  of  water  falling  from  a  rock  with  the  song  of  a 
shepherd.  This  was  distinctly  the  method  of  the  idyl- 
lists,  who  blended  figures  and  landscape  as  closely 
together  as  they  possibly  could,  often  in  a  way  that 
criticism  might  fairly  blame  as  being  too  obviously 
intentional.  The  simplest  and  most  natural  way  of 
doing  this  was  by  merely  informing  the  reader  that  the 
little  incident  narrated  occurred  in  such  or  such  a 

*  'Studies  of  the  Greek  Poets.'  By  John  Addington  Symonds. 
London:  Smith  and  Elder.  1873. 


June  —  Cunning  of  the  Idyllists.          187 

pleasant  place,  where  this  or  that  species  of  tree  was 
growing.  'Let  us  sit  down  here,'  the  goatherd  says, 
'  under  this  elm,  before  this  Priapus  and  these  (carved) 
Kraniades,  where  there  are  a  rustic  seat  and  oak-trees/ 
When  the  poet  describes  a  vase  he  takes  the  oppor- 
tunity of  doing  a  little  leaf-painting  at  the  same  time, 
by  twining  round  the  lips  of  it  a  garland  of  ivy  mixed 
with  pelichrysum,  giving  a  dainty  little  touch  of  color 
just  at  the  last,  /cap™  icpoKoevTi,  of  saffron-colored 
fruit.  The  vase,  too,  is  varnished  with  4  odorous  wax,' 
the  simple  mention  of  which  carries  the  imagination 
instantaneously  to  the  bees  and  their  labors,  and  thence 
to  the  flowers  where  the  odorous  wax  is  found.  Nor 
is  this  all ;  for,  in  continuing  the  description  of  the 
vase,  Theocritus,  whilst  speaking  of  the  figures  upon  it, 
says  that  near  to  one  of  them  is  a  vine  laden  with 
grapes,  and  round  about  the  vase  is  a  wreath  of  the 
flexible  acanthus.  So  in  Virgil's  third  Eclogue  the  two 
cups,  made  by  the  *  divine  Alcimedon,'  are  decorated 
with  carvings  of  vine  and  ivy ;  whilst  on  two  other  cups 
by  the  same  artist,  belonging  to  Damoetas,  the  acanthus 
is  used  for  the  handles  ;  and  in  the  midst  the  artist  has 
represented  Orpheus  and  the  forests  following  him  — 
'  sylvasque  sequentes.'  How  completely  the  sylvan 
spirit  flows  into  every  thing  here  ! 

Mr.  Symonds,  whom  I  have  already  quoted,  thinks 
that,  whilst  it  is  difficult  to  speak  in  terms  of  exag- 
gerated praise  concerning  the  appreciation  of  scenery 
by  Theocritus,  Virgil  lacks  his  vigor  and  enthusiasm 
for  the  open-air  life  of  the  country.  The  sentiment  that 


1 8  8    June  —  Personal  Experience  of  Theocritus. 

we  find  in  Virgil  appears  to  be  of  a  different  nature. 
It  is  not  so  fresh  and  lively,  but  is  more  indolent  and 
tender  ;  still,  it  seems  genuine  also.  The  difference 
between  the  two  is  very  like  a  difference  that  may 
frequently  be  observed  between  two  landscape-painters 
in  our  own  day,  one  of  whom  is  remarkable  for  sketching 
vigorously  in  color,  and  the  other  for  concentrated 
finish  and  artistic  arrangement  of  his  material  in  the 
studio.  The  two  artists  may  have  an  equal  love  for 
Nature,  although  the  work  of  the  first  will  seem  to  have 
more  vitality,  and  that  of  the  second  more  accomplished 
art.  Theocritus  writes  like  a  man  who  is  accustomed 
to  walk  in  all  sorts  of  wild  places,  and  who  remembers 
his  experiences  in  such  walks.  Thus,  in  the  fourth 
Idyl,  Corydon  says,  '  When  you  come  to  the  mountain, 
Battus,  don't  come  unshod ;  for  on  the  mountain-land 
grow  pdpvoi,  and  ao-iraKado^  prickly  shrubs  of  Sicily. 
Evidently  this  is  the  recommendation  of  a  practical 
pedestrian.  Then  he  has  the  art  of  finding  pleasant 
spots  to  rest  in ;  so  Lacon  says  to  his  companion, 
'  Don't  be  in  such  a  hurry,  the  fire  is  not  at  your 
heels.  You  will  sing  more  agreeably  when  you  are 
seated  here  under  the  wild  olive-tree  and  those  shrubs. 
Cool  water  trickles  here  ;  we  have  grass  and  a  leafy 
couch,  and  the  grasshoppers  chirp  close  by.'  Writing 
like  this  takes  us  out  of  doors  at  once,  and  to  the  very 
spot.  In  the  seventh  Idyl  we  have  a  rich  description 
of  a  pleasant  country-house,  and  the  arrival  there  : 
'  Then  Lycidas  turned  to  the  left '  —  observe  the  vivid 
reality  given  by  this  detail  — '  and  took  the  road  to 


June —  Touches  of  Reality.  189 

Pyxus.  But  Encritus  and  I  turned  towards  where 
Phrasidamus  lived,  and  so  did  handsome  little  Amyntas. 
We  reclined  rejoicing  in  deep  beds  of  odorous  mastic- 
leaves,  and  in  leaves  just  stripped  from  the  vines  ;  and 
many  poplars  and  elms  swayed  to  and  fro  over  our 
heads,  and  close  to  us  the  sacred  fountain  babbled 
whilst  it  flowed  from  the  grotto  of  the  nymphs.  And 
in  the  shade-giving  branches  the  sun-browned  cicadas 
tired  themselves  with  chirruping,  and  the  o\6\vyc0v 
made  its  murmuring  noise  far  off*  in  bloomless  thickets 
of  bramble.  The  larks  and  goldfinches  sang,  the  turtle- 
dove uttered  her  plaintive  note,  the  brown-yellow  bees 
flew  round  about  the  fountains,  every  thing  smelt  of  the 
rich  late  summer,  of  the  fruit-time.  Pears  and  apples 
were  beside  us  and  at  our  feet,  and  the  branches  were 
weighed  down  to  the  earth.' 

Evidently  this  description  is  from  memory ;  it  is  a 
lively  account  of  a  rest  in  some  house  the  poet  himself 
must  have  visited.  There  is  especially  one  touch,  the 
poplars  and  elms  waving  to  and  fro  over  the  heads  of 
the  boon  companions,  which  must  have  been  got  from 
Nature.  There  are  other  touches  scattered  about  the 
idyls,  which  have  a  like  reality.  *  I  began  to  love  thee,' 
the  Cyclops  says  to  Galatea,  'when  first  thou  earnest 
with  my  mother  to  gather  hyacinths  upon  the  hilLy 

Whatever  may  be  the  differences  between  Theocritus 
and  his  greatest  imitator,  one  thing  they  have  in  com- 

*  The  creature  is  unknown,  and  the  translation  of  the  word 
can  only  be  guessed  at.  M.  Remer  thinks  it  meant  the  green 
frog. 


19°  June —  The  Aminta  of  Tasso. 

mon,  or  perhaps  it  may  be  more  accurate  to  say  that  one 
quality  was  preserved  in  the  imitation,  and  that  is,  their 
habit  of  calling  every  thing  by  its  own  name.  It  is  un- 
necessary to  give  examples  of  this,  because  every  extract 
that  I  have  made  is  an  example.  The  weak  pastoral 
poetry  of  their  feeblest  and  latest  imitators  is  not 
marked  by  this  masterly  precision.  Theocritus  always 
had  before  his  mind's  eye  the  image  of  a  tree,  when  he 
thought  of  a  tree  at  all,  much  too  clearly  for  him  to  be 
ignorant  of  its  species.  The  weak  imitator  does  not  see 
an  elm  or  a  poplar,  but  only  '  trees/  which  in  English 
have  generally  the  advantage  of  rhyming  with  breeze, 
and  '  groves/  which  are  useful  because  they  rhyme  with 
loves. 


XXXV. 

The  Aminta  of  Tasso  —  His  Indifference  to  Scenery  —  His  Musicai 
Verse  —  Tasso's  Treatment  of  Landscape  —  His  Way  of  Sketching 
—  Human  Interest. 

WHEN  we  pass  from  the  early  genuine  pastorals  to 
such  a  pastoral  as  the  *  Aminta '  of  Tasso,  we 
very  soon  find  out  that  we  have  left  sylvan  Nature 
behind  us.  We  have  shepherds,  and  satyrs,  and  pas- 
toral costumes,  and  an  abundance  of  pretty  talk,  but 
we  are  no  more  in  the  fresh  air  of  Theocritus  than  if  the 
Tuscan  poet  had  studied  nothing  but  a  classical  die- 


June  —  Tassds  Musical  Verse.  191 

tionaiy.  He  does  not  really  care  in  the  least  about  the 
scenery  of  his  poem ;  occasionally  a  tree  is  mentioned, 
or  the  woods,  or  a  rivulet,  or  a  little  lake,  but  curso- 
rily, in  the  temper  of  a  figure-painter  who  dashes  in  a 
bit  of  background  with  what  may  happen  to  be  upon 
his  palette.  The  words  of  course  come  in  well  and 
musically,  as  words:  ( /' onde*  rhymes  prettily  with 
'fronde! 

'  Ho  visto  al  pianto  mio 
Risponder  per  pietate  i  sassi  e  1'onde ; 
E  sospirar  le  fronde 
Ho  visto  al  pianto  mio  ; 
Ma  non  ho  visto  mai, 
Ne  spero  di  vedere 
Compassion  nella  crudele  e  bella.'  * 

These  verses  are  quite  typical  of  Tasso's  treatment 
of  landscape.  He  may  use  it  for  rapid  allusion,  but  will 
not  dwell  upon  it  an  instant  longer  than  is  necessary  for 
his  immediate  purpose,  and  recurs  to  human  passion  as 
a  workman  who  has  glanced  out  of  window  applies  him- 
self again  to  his  own  business.  So  in  the  second  scene 
(Act  I.)  Aminta  tells,  very  exquisitely,  that  pretty  story 
about  the  bee  stinging,  and  how  Filli,  who  was  stung 
on  the  cheek,  was  cured  by  Silvia's  lips  ;  after  which  he, 
Aminta,  who  had  not  been  stung  by  the  bee,  pretended 
that  he  had  been,  and  so  got  a  sort  of  kiss  from  Silvia, 

*'I  have  known  the  stones  and  the  water  answer  my  complaint 
from  pity,  and  I  have  known  the  leaves  sigh  to  it ;  but  I  have  never 
found,  nor  do  I  ever  hope  to  find,  compassion  in  her  who  is  cruel  and 
beautiful.' 


1 92        June —  Tassds  Way  of  Sketching. 

who  did  not  know  that  she  was  kissing  him  ;  by  which 
act  of  innocent  charity  Silvia  inflicted  a  deeper  wound 
than  any  bee  could  have  inflicted.  This  little  scene 
takes  place  '  air  ombra  d'un  bel  faggio]  under  the  shade 
of  a  fine  beech-tree,  and  in  the  course  of  the  narrative 
Aminta  compares  Silvia's  sweet  words  to  the  mur- 
muring of  a  slow  rivulet  that  makes  its  way  amongst 
little  stones,  or  to  the  noise  of  a  light  breeze  under 
the  leaves. 

1  E  le  dolci  parole,  assai  piu  dolci 
Che  '1  mormorar  d*  un  lento  fiumicello 
Che  rompa  il  corso  fra  minuti  sassi, 
O  che  '1  garrir  dell'  aura  infra  le  frondi.' 

But  the  poet  instantly  passes  from  these  light 
touches  of  landscape-sketching  to  the  real  subject  of 
his  thoughts  :  '  Then  I  felt  in  my  heart  a  new  desire 
to  bring  this  mouth  of  mine  nearer  to  her  mouth/ 

'  Allor  sentii  nel  cuor  nuovo  desire 
D'  appressar  alia  sua  questa  mia  bocca.' 

And  when  Dafne  mentions  a  pond  and  an  islet,  it 
is  only  to  tell  how  Silvia  looked  at  herself  in  the  water 
whilst  she  was  dressing  her  hair  and  adorning  it  with 
flowers. 


June —  The  French  Imitation-Pastoral.     193 


XXXVI. 

The  French  Imitation-Pastoral  —  Le  Brun  —  Le  Brun's  Good  Inten- 
tions— The  Modern  Genuine  Pastoral — Lamartine's  '  Laboureurs '  — 
Troyon  and  Rosa  Bonheur  —  Millet  and  Jules  Breton  —  George  Sand 
— '  La  Petite  Fadette '  —  Landry  and  Sylvinet  —  A  perfect  Bit  —  Diffi- 
culty of  treating  Rustic  Subjects  —  A  Satirist  of  Florian. 

WHEN  you  come  to  the  French  imitation-pastoral, 
the  indifference  to  landscape  is  pretty  nearly 
absolute.  You  have  'rockers'  and  ' bois1  and  'for/ts* 
of  course,  but  not  the  faintest  sign  that  the  writer  has 
ever  walked  in  the  woods  with  his  eyes  open.  The 
following  lines  from  Houdard  de  Lamotte  are  a  fair 
specimen  of  the  sort  of  landscape-painting  you  have  to 
expect : — 

1  Aux  plaintes  de  Daphnis  les  Nymphes  s'attendrirent ; 
Dans  le  creux  des  rochers  les  dchos  en  gemirent ; 
Comme  aux  accords  d'Orphe'e  on  vit  du  fond  des  bois 
Les  lions  attendris  accourir  a  sa  voix.' 

The  most  curious  thing  about  the  French  pastoral 
writers  of  the  eighteenth  century  is  that  they  do  really 
seem  to  fancy  themselves  students  of  Nature.  Le  Brun 
wrote  a  poem  on  '  La  Nature,  ou  le  Bonheur  Philoso- 
phique  et  Champetre,'  and  in  the  first  canto  invokes  the 
wood-gods  and  the  nymphs  :  — 

'  Et  vous,  de  la  Nature  immortelles  compagnes, 
Vous,  de'ites  des  bois,  vous,  nymphes  des  campagnes, 
Laissez-moi  parcourir  vos  bosquets  ombrage's 
Que  1'art  contagieux  n'a  jamais  outrages.' 
13 


1 94     Jime  —  The  Modern  Genuine  Pastoral. 

Here  are  decided  intentions  of  taking  walks  in  the 
woods,  but  they  come  to  nothing ;  and  the  poet  dees 
not  get  beyond  a  very  external  interest  in  agriculture, 
which  leaves  him  at  liberty  to  soliloquize  at  great  length 
upon  things  in  general. 

It  was  only  after  the  mania  for  imitating  Virgil  and 
Theocritus  had  completely  spent  itself  that  the  genuine 
modern  school  of  pastoral  art  arose.  The  feeling  which 
inspired  Theocritus  exists  in  our  own  day,  but  now, 
when  it  is  genuine,  it  never  expresses  itself  in  the  form 
that  was  natural  to  him.  Most  commonly,  a  modern 
poet  who  has  this  inspiration  gives  utterance  to  it  by 
means  of  color  upon  canvas,  making  his  idyl  really 
visible,  according  to  the  derivation  of  the  word  from 
eZSo?  and  elBco,  and  he  who  cares  for  this  kind  of  poetry 
may  find  good  pages  of  it  in  the  annual  exhibitions 
of  pictures.  Sometimes  our  modern  writers  in  verse 
or  prose  describe  rural  things  with  idyllic  grace  and 
sweetness,  yet  hardly  ever  with  idyllic  concision  ;  and  it 
is  for  this  reason  chiefly  that  a  painted  idyl,  which  pro- 
duces its  effect  instantaneously  on  the  spectator,  is 
nearer  to  the  original  conception  of  the  el$v\\i,ov.  I 
should  like  very  much  to  quote  some  of  the  best 
modern  work  in  writing,  but  it  is  almost  impossible 
to  do  so  without  invading  one's  space  too  much  :  such 
quotations  are  like  the  young  cuckoo  in  a  small  bird's 
nest ;  they  grow  and  grow  till  they  push  the  native  prog- 
eny aside. 

'  Les  Laboureurs '  of  Lamartine  is  a  very  good  speci- 
men of  the  genuine  modern  rustic  poem.  Here  is  one 


June  —  Lamartine's  * Laboureurs!        195 

extract,  spoiled,  or  nearly  so,  by  being  cut  too  short.     It 
is  quite  a  picture  :  — 

*  Laissant  souffler  ses  bceufs,  le  jeune  homme  s'appuie 
Debout  au  tronc  d'un  chene,  et  de  sa  main  essuie 
La  sueur  du  sender  sur  son  front  male  et  doux  ; 
Lafemme  et  les  enfants  tout  petits,  a  genoux 
Devant  les  bceufs  prives  baissant  leur  corne  d  terre, 
Leur  cassent  des  rejets  defrene  et  defougere, 
Et  jettent  devant  eux  en  verdoyants  monceaux 
Les  feuilles  que  leurs  mains  emondent  des  rameaux  ; 
Us  ruminent  en  paix  pendant  que  1'ombre  obscure 
Sous  le  soleil  montant  se  replie  a  mesure, 
Et,  laissant  de  la  glebe  attiedir  la  froideur, 
Vient  mourir,  et  border  les  pieds  du  laboureur. 
II  rattache  le  joug,  sous  sa  forte  courroie, 
Aux  cornes  qu'en  pesant  sa  main  robuste  ploie 
Les  enfants  vont  cueillir  des  rameaux  decoupes 
Des  gouttes  de  rosee  encore  tout  trempes  ; 
Au  joug  avec  lafeuille  en  verts  festons  les  nouent* 
Que  sur  leurs  fronts  voiles  les  fiers  taureaux  secouent 
Pour  que  leurflanc  qui  bat  et  leur  poitrail poudreux 
Portent  sous  le  soleil  un  peu  d* ombre  avec  eux.' 

This  is  just  as  truthful  as  the  best  bits  of  Virgil,  and 
it  is  a  charming  rustic  scene.  I  have  Italicized  what 
seem  to  me  the  best  and  happiest  touches.  We  see 
that  this  is  strictly  the  same  rustic  inspiration  that 
animated  Troyon  and  Rosa  Bonheur,  yet  sweeter  and 
tenderer  than  theirs.  Millet  and  Jules  Breton,  two 
poets  who  have  worked  in  color,  have  much  more 
human  sympathy  than  the  two  illustrious  animal- 
painters  just  mentioned,  and  are  nearer,  but  in  their 
own  original  way,  to  the  temper  of  the  literary  artists. 


1 96  June  — '  La  Petite  Fadette! 

But  by  far  the  greatest  of  all  modern  writers  on  rustic 
subjects  is  George  Sand.  She  alone  has  found  the 
means  of  conciliating  a  perfectly  rustic  tone  of  thought 
with  the  exigences  of  accomplished  art.  You  may  read 
her  '  La  Petite  Fadette '  in  any  farmhouse  within  sixty 
miles  of  the  place  where  it  was  written,  and  the  peas- 
ants will  understand  you  and  be  grateful ;  you  may  read 
the  same  book  to  the  most  learned  critics  in  polite  liter- 
ature, and  they  will  feel  the  freshness  of  Theocritus,  the 
consummate  art  of  Virgil.  When  Landry  is  seeking 
his  twin-brother  Sylvinet  by  the  brook-side  there  occur 
the  most  exquisite  paragraphs,  finished  like  portions  of 
a  poem :  — 

'  Chacun  sait  pourtant  qu'il  y  a  danger  a  raster  au  bord  de 
notre  riviere  quand  le  grand  vent  se  leve.  Toutes  les  rives 
sont  mine'es  en  dessous,  et  il  n'est  point  d'orage  qui,  dans  la 
quantite,  ne  de'racine  quelques-uns  de  ces  vergnes  qui  sont 
toujours  courts  en  racines,  a  moins  qu'ils  ne  soient  tres  gros 
et  tres  vieux,  et  qui  vous  tomberaient  fort  bien  sur  le  corps 
sans  vous  avertir.  Mais  Sylvinet,  qui  n'etait  pourtant  ni  plus 
simple  ni  plus  fou  qu'un  autre,  ne  paraissait  pas  tenir  compte 
du  danger.  II  n'y  pensait  pas  plus  que  s'il  se  fut  trouve  h 
1'abri  dans  une  bonne  grange.' 

Landry  finds  his  brother  by  the  brook-side,  and  then 
comes  one  of  the  most  perfect  bits  in  the  whole  story. 
See  how  delicately  finished  it  is,  and  yet  how  full  of 
Nature,  and  how  free !  It  is  precisely  in  the  early  Greek 
idyllic  manner,  the  unaffected  manner  of  Theocritus  :  — 

'  II  se  mit  done  a  siffler  comrne  s'il  appelait  les  merles  pour 
les  faire  chanter,  ainsi  que  font  les  patours  quand  ils  suivent 


June  —  A  Satirist  of  Flo ri an.  197 

les  buissons  a  la  nuit  tombante.  Cela  fit  lever  la  t£te  a 
Sylvinet,  et,  voyant  son  f rare,  il  eut  honte  et  se  leva  vivement, 
croyant  n'avoir  pas  ete  vu.  Alors  Landry  fit  comme  s'il 
1'apercevait,  et  lui  dit  sans  beaucoup  crier,  car  la  riviere 
ne  chantait  pas  assez  haut  pour  empecher  de  s'entendre  : 
"He,  mon  Sylvinet,  tu  es  done  la?  Je  t'ai  attendu  tout 
ce  matin,  et  voyant  que  tu  etais  sorti  pour  si  longtemps,  je 
suis  venu  me  promener  par  ici,  en  attendant  le  souper,  oil 
je  comptais  bien  te  retrouver  a  la  maison :  mais  puisque  te 
voila,  nous  rentrerons  ensemble.  Nous  aliens  descendre  la 
riviere  chacun  sur  une  rive,  et  nous  nous  joindrons  au  gue 
des  Roulettes."  ' 

The  difficulty  of  writing  well  about  rustic  subjects  is 
twofold.  Either  the  writer  may  be  untrue,  as  Florian 
was  by  a  false  refinement,  or  he  may  be  too  realist,  too 
terre-a-terre,  like  a  vulgar  painter,  and  be  excluded  from 
all  access  to  the  ideal.  Our  knowledge  of  Nature  feels 
itself  insulted  by  the  first,  and  our  sense  of  artistic  con- 
venance  by  the  second.  The  two  faults,  of  utterly  oppo- 
site kinds,  were  very  cleverly  united  in  the  same  song 
by  a  writer  who  felt  the  absurdity  of  Florian  and  the 
crudeness  of  the  realism  that  is  entirely  without  an 
ideal.  He  makes  a  poet  go  into  the  fields  with  his  head 
full  of  Florian's  notions,  and  enter  into  a  conversation 
with  a  shepherdess  of  the  least  imaginative  type.  What 
he  says  is  the  18th-century  pastoral,  with  its  false  ideal ; 
what  she  answers  is  the  gross  modern  realism  that  has 
no  Idea  whatever.  In  the  chanson  the  male  speaker  has 
entirely  the  worst  of  it,  yet  before  the  tribunal  of  a  com- 
petent art-criticism  she  also  would  be  condemned  as 
unfit  for  the  world  of  art —  that  world  which  has  laws  of 


198  June —  The  Nightingale. 

its  own  about  truth,  where  truth  is  studied  earnestly,  yet 
never  uttered  without  reserve.     Here  is  one  stanza :  — 

'HE. 

'  Permets  qu'a  ton  corsage 

Je  place  ce  bouquet, 
A  tes  pieds  ce  feuillage, 
Sur  ta  tete  ces  bluets  ! 

SHE. 
Monsieur,  tout  9a  m'ennuie, 

Moi  qui  n'ai  qu'mes  sabiots, 
S'il  vous  en  prend  Penvie 

J'vous  les  casserai  d'sus  le  dos.' 


XXXVII. 

The  Nightingale  —  His  wonderful  Voice  —  His  various  Emotional  Ex- 
pression—  His  Music  is  also  Poetry  and  Eloquence — The  Charm  of 
the  Nightingale's  Singing  —  Byron  —  The  Opening  of  'Parisina' — 
The  Nightingale  sings  on  a  height  —  Chaucer's  Love  of  the  Night- 
ingale—  Goldfinch  and  Nightingale — A  Poet's  Paradise  —  Tradition 
amongst  the  Peasants  —  Buffon's  Description  of  the  Nightingale's 
Song — The  Talk  of  the  Birds  —  The  Secret  of  the  Bird-Language. 

AS  an  eloquent  speaker  dislikes  interruption,  and 
never  attempts  to  display  his  eloquence  when 
he  cannot  be  sure  of  silence  round  about  him,  so  the 
nightingale  says  nothing  in  the  daytime,  when  a  thousand 
other  voices  and  noises  of  all  kinds  would  interrupt  his 
melodious  utterance,  but  reserves  it  for  the  silence  of 
the  night,  when  he  alone  is  king  of  the  forest,  and  he 
may  fancy  that  all  other  creatures  are  listening.  His 


June  —  His  Wonderful  Voice.  199 

song  was  too  original  and  too  beautiful  to  be  mixed 
with  the  vulgar  noises  of  the  day,  and  even  the  glare 
of  sunshine  would  have  been  too  violent  an  accom- 
paniment ;  but  when  the  woods  lie  dark  in  the  broad 
shadows  that  are  cast  by  the  midnight  moon,  and  only 
a  leaf  glitters  here  and  there  as  it  trembles  in  the  soft, 
noiseless  breezes  of  the  summer  night,  then,  on  some 
thin  high  branch,  the  nightingale  sits  and  sings  alone. 
And  what  wonderful  singing  it  is  !  Many  a  human 
reputation  has  been  overdone,  but  this  reputation  of  the 
nightingale,  great  as  it  has  been  in  all  countries  that 
are  favored  by  his  performances,  and  even  in  other  coun- 
tries, too,  by  hearsay,  has  never  yet  fully  prepared  any 
sensitive  person  to  hear  him  for  the  first  time  with- 
out both  delight  and  amazement.  The  wonder  ever 
remains  that  a  creature  so  small  and  weak,  so  little 
gifted  with  the  graces  of  outward  appearance,  a*  little, 
thin,  gray  bird  that  only  weighs  half-an-ounce  -^  the 
weight  of  a  letter  —  should  possess  a  voice  as  strong  as 
the  voice  of  a  prima  donna  at  the  Opera,  and  at  the 
same  time  so  marvellously  sweet  and  pure.  But  not 
alone  for  its  strength  and  its  purity  is  the  song  of  the 
nightingale  astonishing.  Its  variety  and  flexibility  are 
more  astonishing  still.  No  musician  ever  better  under- 
stood the  value  of  piano  and  pianissimo,  of  forte  and 
fortissimo,  no  musician  ever  developed  a  crescendo  with 
more  sure  and  delicate  gradation.  And  then  the  clear, 
shrill  pipings,  the  long  brilliant  shakes,  the  sudden  sharp 
strokes  of  sound  like  the  crash  of  a  violinist's  bow  upon 
the  strings,  the  tender  passionate  cadences  fading  away 


2OO       June  —  His  Emotional  Expression. 

into  the  night  air  and  dying  slowly  in  a  prolonged  agony 
till  they  grow  so  thin  and  faint  that  you  know  not 
whether  yet  they  have  wholly  ceased  or  not !  The  bird 
runs  over  the  whole  range  of  emotional  expression,  from 
the  intoxication  of  loudest  triumph  that  can  be  heard  as 
far  as  the  shouting  of  a  strong  man,  down  to  the  sighing 
of  an  airy  voice  that  seems  like  the  lamentation  of  an 
inconsolable  spirit.  Often  there  is  an  evident  artist- 
pride  in  consummate  executive  accomplishment,  often 
the  bird  plays  upon  its  own  marvellous  instrument  as  a 
musician  plays  the  flute  or  the  violin,  seeking  for  the 
most  varied  and  original  effects,  and  rejoicing  in  them 
when  they  are  found.  Again,  the  song  of  the  night- 
ingale being  his  only  utterance,  it  is  not  music  simply 
as  music  is  for  us,  but  also  poetry  and  eloquence.  The 
nightingale  is  not  merely  a  musician  playing  on  an 
instrument,  he  is  a  singer  as  we  say  that  the  poets 
themselves  are  singers.  No  one  who  listens  can  doubt 
that  he  expresses  an  original  emotion.  The  abundant 
variety  of  his  song  is  evidence  that  it  is  not  simply 
mechanical,  and  the  pauses  that  he  allows  himself  are 
not  merely  to  recruit  from  physical  weariness,  but  much 
more  to  seek  a  fitting  expression  for  the  emotion  that 
is  beginning  to  succeed  to  that  which  has  just  been 
expressed.  If  the  reader  thinks  that  it  is  too  much 
to  claim  for  this  the  character  of  poetry,  since  there 
is  no  conscious  exercise  of  creative  intellect,  he  will 
scarcely  deny  to  the  bird  a  gift  like  that  of  some  mu- 
sician who  in  the  late  evening  sits  at  his  piano,  and 
in  a  long  series  of  unpremeditated  improvisations  gives 


June— Byron.  201 

expiessioiv  to  his  feelings  as  they  arise.  He,  too,  in  a 
certain  sense,  is  a  poet,  though  not  in  words.  And  the 
true  ineffable  charm  of  the  nightingale's  singing  is  not 
in  the  quality  of  the  sound,  exquisite  as  it  is,  but  in 
the  wonder  of  the  communication  from  the  little  bird 
to  us.  '  What ! '  thinks  the  human  listener, '  can  the  bird 
feel  all  these  mighty  emotions  ?  can  he  feel  such  glory 
of  triumph,  such  tender  melancholy,  such  languor  of 
passion  ? '  Man,  as  he  listens,  quite  easily  falls  under 
the  spell.  The  very  hour  and  season  conspire  together 
against  him.  It  is  summer  in  its  richness,  it  -is  night 
in  its  beauty  and  calm.  The  heart  is  hushed  and  sub- 
dued, the  eyes  are  quite  ready  to  moisten  at  any 
suggestion  of  melancholy,  or  the  imagination  to  be 
aroused  by  any  awakening  voice.  The  voice  comes 
mysteriously  from  an  unseen  being,  the  quiet  of  the 
night  is  filled  and  flooded  with  it,  we  are  bathed  in 
the  sound  as  in  moonlight,  and  then  all  our  great  human 
feelings  are  played  upon  by  that  tiny  creature  as  an 
organ  is  played  upon  by  the  organist. 

Some  of  the  very  sweetest  lines  in  poetry  have  been 
suggested  by  the  nightingale.  Byron,  from  his  residence 
in  southern  climates,  where  the  song  of  the  bird  is  bolder 
and  more  varied  than  in  England,  was  familiar  with  it, 
and  has  celebrated  it  in  two  of  his  best-known  and  most 
beautiful  passages.  There  is  nothing  in  all  poetry  more 
exquisitely  finished  than  the  opening  lines  of  '  Parisina.' 
Byron  was  always  happy  in  his  openings,  but  this  one 
comes  upon  the  reader  with  a  sudden  sweetness,  that 
makes  him  feel  in  an  instant  the  delicate  firm  touch 


2O2       June —  The  Opening  of  '  Parisina? 

of  the  master's  hand.     What  a  way  of  telling  us  that 
it  is  late  evening ! 

1  It  is  the  hour  when  from  the  boughs 
The  nightingale's  high  note  is  heard ; 

It  is  the  hour  when  lovers'  vows 

Seem  sweet  in  every  whispered  word  ; 

And  gentle  winds  and  waters  near 

Make  music  to  the  lonely  ear. 

Each  flower  the  dews  have  lightly  wet, 

And  in  the  sky  the  stars  are  met, 

And  on  the  wave  a  deeper  blue, 

And  on  the  leaf  a  browner  hue, 

And  in  the  heaven  that  clear  obscure, 

So  softly  dark,  and  darkly  pure, 

Which  follows  the  decline  of  day 

As  twilight  melts  beneath  the  moon  away.' 

In  this  passage  the  '  nightingale's  high  note '  is  the 
dominant  note  of  the  whole  composition,  nor  is  there 
any  more  perfect  example  in  the  poetic  art  of  the  im- 
mense importance  that  a  true  master  can  give  to  a  single 
line.  The  bird  is  only  mentioned  once,  and  then  with  the 
utmost  brevity  ;  but  that  '  high  note  '  once  sounded,  fills 
the  whole  exquisite  description  in  the  succeeding  verses. 
Byron  seems  to  have  been  particularly  impressed  by 
the  height  from  which  the  voice  of  the  bird  announced 
itself ;  and  here,  no  doubt,  is  one  of  the  elements  of  its 
effect ;  just  as  it  is  in  the  bell's  note  from  a  cathedral 
tower,  or  the  Muezzin's  voice  from  a  minaret* 

*  Not  to  multiply  quotations,  I  have  omitted  the  beautiful  passage 
near  the  beginning  of  the  '  Giaour,'  but  may  remind  the  reader  of  the 
well-known  line,  — 

'  His  thousand  songs  are  heard  on  high? 


June  —  Chaucer  s  Love  of  the  Nightingale.   203 

Chaucer,  always  so  alive  to  every  thing  that  could 
add  a  charm  to  the  woods  and  fields  where  he  delighted 
to  wander,  paid  great  attention  to  the  songs  of  birds, 
and  to  the  nightingale  especially.  He  tells  us  in  '  The 
Flower  and  the  Leaf  how  eagerly  he  listened  for  this 
bird,  although  many  others  were  singing  in  a  way  that 
ought  to  have  gladdened  any  one  :  — 

'  And  eke  the  briddes  songe  for  to  here 
Would  have  rejoiced  any  earthly  wight, 
And  I  that  couth  not  yet  in  no  manere 
Heare  the  nightingale  of  all  the  yeare, 
Full  busily  hearkened  with  herte  and  with  eare, 
If  I  her  voice  perceive  coud  any  where.' 

There  is  a  charming  description,  in  the  same  poem, 
of  a  conversation  between  a  goldfinch  and  a  nightingale  ; 
the  goldfinch  singing  first  when  he  had  eaten  '  what  he 
eat  wold/  and  the  nightingale  answering  him  with  so 
merry  a  note  that  all  the  wood  rang  suddenly.     Then 
comes  one  of  the  most  naif  passages  in  all  Chaucer, 
when  he  tells  us  how  he  wanted  to  get  sight  of  the 
nightingale,  which  at  first  was  not  easy  (as  any  one 
knows  who  has  tried) ;  however,  he  managed  it  at  last, 
and  then  felt  so  gladdened  by  seeing  what  he  wanted 
to  see  that  he  fancied  himself  in  Paradise  :  — 
'  Wherefore  I  waited  about  busily 
On  every  side,  if  I  might  her  see  ; 
And  at  the  last  I  gan  full  well  espy 
Where  she  sat  in  a  fresh  grene  laurer  tree, 
On  the  further  side  even  right  by  me, 
That  gave  so  passing  a  delicious  smell 
According  to  the  eglantere  full  well. 


204    June  —  Tradition  amongst  the  Peasants. 

Whereof  I  had  inly  so  great  pleasure, 
That,  as  methought,  I  surely  ravished  was 
Into  Paradise,  where  my  desire 
Was  for  to  be.' 

Beautifully,  however,  as  the  poets  may  have  sung  of 
the  nightingale,  I  doubt  whether  it  ever  occurred  to  the 
most  inventive  of  them  to  imagine  such  an  exquisitely 
poetical  reason  for  his  choice  of  the  night-time  for 
singing  as  the  simple  peasants  about  the  Val  Ste. 
Veronique  have  handed  down  by  a  believed  tradition. 
Some  peasant-poet  must  have  had  this  original  fancy, 
and  then  been  pleased  with  it,  and  told  it  to  his  neigh- 
bors, whose  poetic  sense  preserved  it  with  that  inability 
to  distinguish  between  history  and  fiction  which  always 
marks  the  uncultivated  human  being.  They  say,  and 
believe,  that  long  ago  the  nightingale  sang  in  the  day- 
time like  other  birds,  but  that  once  in  a  warm  night  of 
May,  when  the  vine  was  growing  quickly,  a  bird  of  this 
species  went  to  rest  upon  a  vine  and  fell  asleep  there ; 
and  whilst  he  slept  the  tendrils  grew  very  fast,  and  as 
they  grew  they  twined  about  his  tiny  legs  and  held 
them,  so  that  when  morning  came  he  could  not  get 
away,  though  his  comrades  came  to  help  him.  The 
poor  bird  died  in  this  miserable  situation,  and  his  com- 
rades were  so  impressed  by  what  they  had  seen  that 
they  dared  no  longer  go  to  sleep  at  night,  but  watched 
in  fear  of  the  same  sad  fate,  and  sang  to  keep  each 
other  awake.  Even  now,  in  the  early  summer,  they 
utter  the  same  notes  of  warning,  and  what  they  say- 
is  this:  l  Lzvigne  pousse — pousse—pousse vitevite 


June  —  Biiffons  Description.  205 

vite  vite  vite  vite  vite  !  '  When  a  peasant  tells  this  he 
always  pronounces  pousse — pousse —  very  slowly,  and  in 
a  low  voice,  as  if  he  were  telling  you  a  secret  that  deeply 
concerned  you ;  but  when  he  comes  to  the  vite  vite  vite 
he  breaks  into  km  ier  and  higher  tones,  and  finishes  in 
a  hurried  presto. 

The  finest  and  most  complete  description  nf  the 
nightingale's  song  that  I  ever  met  with  is  in  l>uffon. 
It  is  remarkably  accurate,  and  full  of  the  closest  study, 
whilst  the  mastery  of  language  displayed  in  the  literary 
workmanship  is  quite  inimitable,  so  that  after  reading 
it  no  other  author  would  venture  to  attempt  any  such 
piece  of  work  with  the  hope  of  excelling  it  in  the  same 
way.  The  most  astonishing  thing  from  the  critical 
point  of  view,  in  this  masterpiece,  is  that,  although 
Buffon  wrote  in  a  language  which  is  remarkably  poor 
in  words  that  express  varieties  of  sound,  we  never  feel 
this  poverty  in  the  least  when  reading  it.  The  entire 
passage  is  too  long  to  quote,  but  the  following  extract 
from  it  is  sufficiently  independent  to  be  detached  :  — 

'  II  commence  par  un  prelude  timide,  par  des  tons  faibles, 
presqu'inde'cis,  comme  s'il  voulait  essayer  son  instrument  et 
interesser  ceux  qui  I'e'coutent ;  mais  ensuite  prenant  de  Passur- 
ance,  il  s'anime  par  degres,  il  s'echauffe,  et  bientot  il  deploie 
dans  leur  plenitude  toutes  les  ressources  de  son  incomparable 
organe  ;  coups  de  gosiers  eclatants  ;  batteries  vives  et  legeres  ; 
fusees  de  chant  ou  la  nettete'  est  e'gale  a  la  volubilite,  murmure 
interieure  et  sourd  qui  n'est  point  appreciable  a  1'oreille,  mais 
tres  propre  a  augmenter  Feclat  des  sons  appreciates  ;  roulades 
pre'cipitees,  brillantes  et  rapides,  articulees  avec  force  et  meme 
avec  une  durete  de  bon  gout ;  accents  plaintifs  cadences  avec 


2o6  June  —  Talk  of  the  Birds. 

mollesse  j  sons  fiMs  sans  art  mais  enfles  avec  &me  ;  sons  en- 
chanteurs  et  pdn^trants,'  &c. 

Then  follows  a  very  sagacious  observation  on  the 
artistic  utility  of  those  intervals  of  silence  which  the 
nightingale  employs  so  well,  and  which  answer,  in  his 
singing,  to  the  spaces  of  smooth  wall  in  architecture,  to 
the  spaces  of  blank  paper  in  an  etching. 

After  the  month  of  June  the  nightingale  sings  no 
more,  but  cries  and  croaks  —  a  lamentable  change  for  the 
worse ;  and  more  than  that,  a  loss  of  all  that  we  care 
for  in  the  creature.  After  that  the  bird  is  forgotten  by 
those  whom  he  once  enchanted,  and  dwells  in  perfect 
obscurity  under  the  shadows  of  the  deep  woods  that 
were  filled  by  his  marvellous  melody.  Happier,  how- 
ever, than  men  who  have  been  famous  and  are  famous 
no  longer,  he  lives  on  in  a  prosaic  way,  without  re- 
gretting the  wonderful  nights  when  his  voice  was 
supreme  beneath  the  moon,  and  all  things  that  had 
ears  must  listen. 

There  is  a  popular  superstition  in  the  Val  Ste. 
Veronique,  and  in  the  country  for  some  miles  round, 
that  every  bird  repeats  some  phrase  of  its  own  in  dis- 
tinct French  words,  which  we  should  all  hear  and  under- 
stand if  we  were  only  clever  enough.  It  is  believed 
also  that  certain  wise  and  elderly  persons  in  the  villages 
do  really  understand  the  language  of  the  birds,  and  they 
seem  to  be  disposed  to  profit  by  the  popular  illusion,  which 
they  are  at  no  pains  to  dispel  by  disclaiming  the  knowl- 
edge imputed  to  them.  Very  probably  this  superstition 
may  have  had  its  origin  in  mere  tales  of  infancy.  Some 


June  —  Secret  of  the  Bird  Language.       207 

parent  may  have  pretended  to  know  the  language  of 
the  birds  to  amuse  or  govern  his  children,  and  after- 
wards the  tradition  of  this  may  have  remained.  The 
same  pretension  is  to  be  found  in  Oriental  story.  But 
there  is  one  peculiarity  about  it  in  the  neighborhood  of 
the  Val  Ste.  VeVonique,  which  is  this.  He  who  knows 
the  bird-language  is  forbidden  by  the  popular  supersti- 
tion to  communicate  it  to  any  one  until  he  lies  upon 
his  death-bed,  when  he  may  teach  it  to  one  member  of 
his  family ;  who,  of  course,  is  bound  by  the  same  law. 
Now  as  it  generally  happens  that  a  man  lying  upon 
his  death-bed  has  other  things  to  think  about  than  the 
transmission  of  bird-lore,  the  consequence  of  course  is 
that  the  knowledge  of  it  is  conveniently  attributable  to 
people  who  have  not  transmitted  it.  '  My  father  knew 
their  language/  a  peasant-girl  will  tell  you,  *  but  when 
he  came  to  die  he  did  not  teach  it  us.'  In  this  way 
a  pleasant  and  permanent  mystery  is  maintained,  and 
it  is  still  believed  that  one  or  two  ancient  men  and 
women  know  the  bird-lore,  and  may  possibly  commu- 
nicate it  when  they  come  to  die,  if  any  one  is  there  to 
receive  it. 


208  June  —  The  Ash. 


XXXVIII. 

The  Ash  —  Cantharides — The  Elder-flower  —  Elder-flower  Wine  — 
Elder-tree — Honeysuckle  —  Forget-me-Not  —  Coloring  of  the  For- 
get-me-Not  —  Dislike  to  certain  Trees — The  Robinia  —  Robinia 
and  Birch  —  Branching  of  the  Robinia  —  Odor  of  the  Flowers  of  the 
Robinia  —  Wild  Thyme  —  Beloved  by  Hares  and  Bees  —  Honey- 
suckle —  Creeping  Bugle  —  Veronica  —  Galium  —  Goldfinch  —  This- 
tle —  Lime-tree. 

THE  ash  comes  into  full  leaf  in  June,  and  is  one  of 
our  finest  and  most  artistic  trees.     The  country 
people  about  the  Val  Ste.  Veronique  have  a  proverb  to 
the  effect  that  it  neutralizes  poisons:  — 

'  Dessous  le  frane  venin  ne  regne.' 

Certain  insects  have  also  an  especial  belief  in  the 
salubrity  of  the  ash,  or  at  least  in  its  suitableness  to 
their  own  constitutions.  Those  remarkable  insects,  the 
cantharides,  fix  upon  it  as  a  lodging  for  their  colonies. 
The  Val  is  sufficiently  far  south  for  this  to  happen 
occasionally,  and  when  it  does  happen  the  effect  is 
most  curious.  The  trees  are  entirely  covered  with  the 
glossy  green  insects,  which  emit  such  a  pungent  odor 
that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  remain  under  them  or 
near  them. 

A  much  more  agreeable,  yet  rather  heavy  and  in- 
toxicating fragrance,  is  that  of  the  elder-flower,  which 
is  abundant  towards  the  middle  of  June.  In  grape- 
producing  countries  the  wine  made  from  this  flower  is 


June  —  The  Elder-  Tree.  209 

always  unknown,  but  in  the  north  it  yields  its  properties 
by  infusion,  and  the  product,  after  fermentation,  is  used 
as  a  substitute  for  champagne,  often  by  very  rich  people. 
As  is  generally  the  case  with  substitutes,  there  is  little 
real  relation  between  the  original  wine  and  that  which  is 
made  to  replace  it.  Elder-flower  wine  is  not  champagne, 
nor  any  thing  like  it,  but  it  has  great  claims  to  con- 
sideration on  its  own  merits  ;  and  although -no  poet  has 
ever  sung  its  praises,  they  certainly  ought  to  be  sung, 
and  not  coldly  spoken  only,  as  in  this  pedestrian  prose.* 
The  closeness  of  the  relation  between  taste  and  perfume 
is  rarely  more  manifest  than  in  this  beverage,  for  to 
drink  it  is  to  drink  perfume,  the  perfume  of  an  elder- 
bush  in  June.  I  may  add  that  the  heaviness  in  the 
natural  fragrance  is  maintained  in  the  somnolence  which 
the  wine  induces,  for  he  who  has  indulged  in  it  is  sure 
to  be  overpowered  by  drowsiness  unless  he  resists  with 
all  his  might,  or  counteracts  the  sleepy  drink  by  some 
awakening  stimulant. 

"  The  elder-tree  sometimes  grows  high  enough  to  be  of 
some  importance  in  the  near  landscape,  and  its  white 
corymbs  of  flowers  are  visible  at  a  great  distance.  The 
way  in  which  these  corymbs  are  carried  on  the  tree  is 
one  of  its  chief  beauties,  their  flat  surfaces  being  in  so 
many  different  positions,  but  always  in  obedience  to  a 
regular  law  of  growth  ;  the  foliage,  too,  is  elegant  and 
gracefully  borne. 

*  Elder-fl  wer  wine   is   at  least  mentioned  in  a  very  well-known 
Scottish  ballad,  '  The  Laird  of  Cockpen  : '  — 

1  Mistress  Jean  she  was  making  the  elder-flower  wine, 
Now  what  brings  the  Laird  at  sic  a  like  time  ? ' 


2 1  o  June  —  Honeysuckle. 

The  honeysuckle  begins  to  flower  a  little  later  than 
the  elder-tree.  When  the  elder  is  all  covered  with  its 
corymbs  the  honeysuckle  flowers  are  opening,  a  bud  or 
two  here  and  there  entirely  out,  the  rest  not  yet.  Their 
pink  and  yellow  are  pleasant  with  the  peculiar  tertiary 
green  of  the  older  leaves,  one  of  the  best  sober  greens  in 
landscape.  The  new  leaves  are  brighter  and  cruder. 

A  flower  strictly  contemporary  with  the  elder,  and  of 
some  importance  from  its  quantity,  notwithstanding  its 
extreme  minuteness,  is  the  forget-me-not,  the  Myosotis 
(called  so  because  its  leaf  is  like  the  ear  of  a  mouse). 
The  effect  of  the  color  of  this  tiny  flower  is  amazing 
when  you  consider  how  little  there  is  of  it ;  but  this  is 
due  to  a  principle  well  known  to  modern  painters,  even 
too  well  known,  —  the  principle  of  stippling  with  pure 
color  in  minute  touches.  Here  is  one  of  those  in- 
stances in  which  Nature  herself  does  this.  If  the 
flower  were  wholly  blue  it  would  still  act  in  the  fore- 
ground, when  abundant,  as  a  stippling  with  pure  color, 
but  the  principle  is  carried  still  farther.  There  is  a 
central  eye  of  yellow  entirely  surrounded  by  sky-blue, 
and  the  effect  of  the  flower  is  due  in  great  part  to  the 
purity  of  the  central  spot.  Even  the  least  observant  are 
struck  by  the  forget-me-not,  and  how  much  of  the  popu- 
larity of  the  flower  is  due  to  its  bright  coloring  may  be 
guessed  if  we  suppose  it  green  like  its  mouse-ear  leaves. 
No  lover  would  have  paid  much  attention  to  it  then. 

I  alluded  in  a  preceding  chapter  to  the  intense  dislike 
which  some  people  feel  for  particular  trees.  Amongst 
the  trees  which  have  bitter  enemies  may  be  mentioned 


June  —  Robinia  and  Birch.  2 1 1 

the  acacia,  or,  more  correctly,  the  robinia.  It  was 
brought  into  France  from  Canada  by  a  botanist  called 
Robin,  in  the  reign  of  Henry  IV.,  and  has  thriven  so 
well  that  you  find  it  all  over  the  country.  The  re- 
markable rapidity  of  its  growth  is  a  great  temptation  to 
its  use  as  an  ornamental  tree  ;  but  now  come  the  objec- 
tions. Its  enemies  dislike  it  because  the  leaves  grow 
late  in  the  spring,  and  some  people  cannot  endure  the 
odor  of  its  flowers ;  which  to  me,  however,  is  very 
agreeable,  especially  when  it  comes  on  the  soft,  mild, 
evening  air  of  June,  and  is  thus  wafted  from  a  little 
distance.  Other  objections  are  that  the  stem  is  ugly 
because  so  deeply  furrowed,  and  that  the  thin,  light 
foliage  gives  but  little  shade.  I  confess  that  there  is 
almost  a  contradiction  in  character  between  such  a  rude 
stem  and  such  delicate  leaves  and  flowers,  or  at  least  a 
very  striking  contrast,  and  I  admit  that  the  shade  given 
is  not  comparable  to  that  of  the  lime-tree  or  the  horse- 
chestnut  ;  still  it  may  be  answered,  that  we  feel  the 
delicacy  of  the  leaves  all  the  more  from  the  roughness 
of  the  furrowed  trunk,  and  that  the  robinia  gives  as 
much  shade  as  the  birch,  whose  beauty  is  generally 
appreciated.  The  branching  of  the  robinia  is  rather 
straggling  and  wayward,  so  that  the  twigs  do  not  com- 
pose so  well  together  as  those  of  the  ash  or  birch  ;  but 
even  this  is  interesting  as  a  special  characteristic,  for  if 
all  trees  threw  their  branches  out  in  exactly  the  same 
manner  we  should  be  wearied  by  their  monotony. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  imprevu  in  the  branching  of  the 
robinia  ;  no  painter  would  invent  such  branching  unless 


212  June —  Wild  Thyme. 

he  had  studied  it  in  Nature.  Its  spring  colors,  light 
green  leaves,  and  white  flowers,  are  gay  and  pleasant. 
As  for  the  odor  of  the  flowers,  there  are  people  who 
detest  the  perfume  of  the  rose,  so  that  it  is  difficult 
to  please  everybody. 

Most  people  like  the  fragrance  of  wild  thyme.  There 
are  often  great  quantities  of  it  in  dry,  stony  places,  where 
its  tiny  dull-green  leaves  make  an  agreeable  sober  fore- 
ground color,  not  harshly  interrupted  by  the  modest 
violet  of  the  flowers.  Its  strong  perfume  is  due  in  part 
to  the  presence  of  camphor  in  the  plant.  It  is  beloved 
of  hares  and  bees,  and  the  scent  is  so  refreshing  that  it 
will  revive  a  weary  or  fainting  person.  It  is  constantly 
used  by  the  clever  French  cooks  to  give  flavor  to  their 
dishes.  The  poets  have  loved  it  since  classic  times,  and 
with  reason,  for  there  is  a  great  charm  in  the  union  of 
its  modest  appearance  with  so  sweet  and  healthy  a  per- 
fume. It  is  one  of  the  humble  plants  which  form  the. 
variegated  carpet  of  the  earth  ;  a  plant  to  be  crushed 
under  hoof  and  foot,  yet  so  strong  and  spreading  that  it 
is  never  seriously  injured,  and  in  return  for  much  ill- 
usage  only  yields  its  fragrance  the  more  abundantly. 

The  later  weeks  of  June  are  remarkably  rich  in 
flowers.  The  honeysuckle  is  then  fully  out  (at  least  in 
the  Val  Ste.  Veroniqne).  We  have  the  creeping  bugle 
in  abundance,  with  its  fine  blue  corolla ;  the  germander 
veronica,  with  its  veined  flowers  of  tender  blue  ;  the 
crosswort  galium,  the  '  slender  galingale '  of  poetry,  with 
yellow  flowers,  honey-scented ;  the  emollient  mallow  ; 
and  the  harsh  thistle  with  its  purple  glories.  It  is 


June  —  Goldfinch.  2 1 3 

curious  that  the  thistle,  which  we  so  generally  associate 
with  donkeys,  should  have  given,  in  one  language  at 
least,  its  name  to  that  sweet  singing-bird  which,  ac- 
cording to  Chaucer,  had  a  singing  conversation  with 
the  nightingale  —  the  goldfinch  ;  in  French,  chardonneret, 
from  chardon,  because  it  frequents  the  thistle.  The 
plant  may  also  be  associated  with  the  fine  arts,  as 
its  spiky  forms  are  peculiarly  rich  and  interesting  in 
certain  kinds  of  decorative  drawing  and  silversmiths' 
work.  .  They  are  excessively  difficult  to  draw,  from 
the  complicated  perspectives  of  the  prickly  wings  on 
the  leaf-margins.  Few  artists  have  ever  drawn  a  thistle 
thoroughly,  probably  from  a  feeling  that  any  complete 
rendering  of  such  a  plant  would  lead  to  hardness  in 
execution. 

Of  the  large  plants  which  flower  late  the  lime-tree 
deserves  special  mention,  for  its  agreeable  qualities 
as  a  shade-giving  tree,  and  its  pleasant  color  and 
odor.  Few  trees  are  more  intimately  connected  with 
human  life  than  this.  It  is  so  constantly  used  to  shade 
private  and  public  walks,  that  most  of  us  have  re- 
collections associated  with  it.  The  lime  has  also  its 
heroic  traditions.  It  has  never  supplied  masts  for 
war-ships  like  the  fir,  nor  material  for  their  strong 
hulls  like  the  oak,  but  it  was  used  in  ancient  times 
for  bucklers ;  and  its  bark  must  have  had  a  sacred 
character,  as  it  was  worn  by  sacrificing  priests.  The 
flower  of  the  lime-tree  is  gathered  in  great  quantities 
for  medicinal  purposes,  and  administered  very  exten- 
sively in  France  as  an  infusion. 


214        fafy  —  Gray  Coloring  after  Heat. 


XXXIX. 

Gray  Coloring  after  Heat  —  Blue  Sky  turns  to  Gray  —  French  Landscape- 
painting  —  Monotony  of  Sunshine  —  Favorable  to  Work  —  Abundant 
Light  —  Ennui  of  Sunshine  —  Despondency  caused  by  it  — -Oppres- 
sion of  Sunshine  — '  Mariana  in  the  South  '  — The  Black  Shadow  — 
Auguste  Bonheur's  Interpretation  of  Sunshine  —  Changes  in  the  Con- 
dition of  the  Eye  —  Sunshine  of  Different  Degrees  —  Streams  in  the 
Val  Ste.  Veronique  —  Dreary  Scenes  on  Southern  Rivers  —  The  Loire 
—  Its  Affluents  — The  Great  Bridges  — The  Herds  —  Processions  for 
Rain  —  Oppressive  Heat  —  Sudden  Coming  of  a  Thunderstorm. 

TOWARDS  the  end  of  July,  if  the  year  has  not 
been  exceptionally  wet,  the  landscape  of  Eastern 
France  loses  its  freshness,  and  acquires  that  rather  dull 
and  gray  look  which  often  astonishes  English  critics 
in  the  works  of  the  most  faithful  French  landscape- 
painters.  From  the  artistic  point  of  view  I  cannot  think 
that  this  gray  look  is  altogether  a  misfortune,  The 
brightness  of  the  spring  color  is  quite  gone,  much  of 
the  herbage  is  dried  by  a  sun  that  is  almost  African 
in  its  severity  ;  but  what  the  landscape  loses  in  gayety 
it  gains  in  sobriety,  and  the  tints,  quiet  as  they  are,  often 
go  very  well  together,  and  richly  deserve  study.  The 
greens  all  become  tertiary  greens,  but  there  is  great 
variety  in  them,  and  it  is  just  the  variety  which  a 
cultivated  colorist  is  sure  to  pay  great  attention  to, 


July  —  Monotony  of  Sunshine.  215 

whilst  a  crude  one  will  as  surely  neglect  it.  As  an  ac- 
companiment to  this  dulling  of  all  the  greens,  the  sky 
changes  from  the  clear  blue  of  early  summer  and  the 
dark  blue  of  the  first  heats  to  a  sort  of  gray,  which  is 
very  well  known  to  the  inhabitants  of  southern  climates 
—  the  dark  gray  of  the  hot  weather.  This  particular 
kind  of  gray  is  never  to  be  seen  at  all  in  northern  coun- 
tries. It  is  a  real  sky-color,  not  cloud-color ;  but  it  is 
far,  indeed,  from  the  blue  which  we  most  commonly 
associate  with  the  open  heaven.  I  have  often  matched 
it  very  carefully  in  oil  and  water  color,  and  always 
with  renewed  astonishment  at  the  quantity  of  red  and 
yellow  that  it  requires.  These  gray  skies  of  the  in- 
tensely hot  weather  are  often  most  accurately  rendered 
by  the  French  landscape-painters,  which  makes  north- 
ern critics  affirm  that  they  cannot  color. 

There  are  long  weeks  of  monotony  in  the  fine 
summers,  that  may  be  appreciated  for  their  practical 
convenience  by  landscape-painters  who  work  from  Na- 
ture, as  the  same  effect  of  gray  sunshine  recurs  day 
after  day ;  but  their  influence  upon  the  mind  is  rather 
a  tranquillizing  than  an  exciting  influence.  The  mo- 
notony of  sunshine  is  like  any  other  monotony ;  it  tends 
to  lull  the  mind  into  a  condition  of  fixed  routine,  in 
which  activity  is  still  possible,  yet  repeats  itself  as  the 
days  do.  Through  the  long  summer,  which  seems  not 
merely  long  but  endless,  we  do  always  the  same  things 
at  the  same  hours,  moving  with  the  quiet  regularity  of 
the  shadow  on  the  sun-dial.  When  the  physical  con- 
stitution is  inured  to  heat,  there  is  no  season  of  the 


2 1 6  July  —  Ennui  of  Sunshine. 

year  more  favorable  to  regular  work.  The  intense  light 
does  not  weary  the  eyes,  —  it  is  astonishing  how  easily 
they  endure  the  solar  glare,  —  and  it  is  easy  to  provide 
an  artificial  shadow.  Then  the  mind,  being  entirely 
undisturbed  by  any  considerations  about  the  weather, 
settles  into  a  routine  of  habits,  and  pursues  its  objects 
with  a  tranquil  simplicity  of  purpose  which  is  sure 
to  lead  to  some  tangible  result.  There  is  light  enough, 
and  there  is  time  enough  for  every  thing  :  thus,  with 
plenty  of  work  and  a  sustained  energy,  a  man  may 
pass  through  the  long  monotony  of  the  southern  sum- 
mer without  weariness,  and  even  regret  the  conclusion 
of  it  when  it  breaks  up  at  last  in  thunder ;  but  if 
once  the  ennui  of  sunshine  seizes  you  it  is  very  terrible 
and  very  difficult  to  contend  against.  Then  the  con- 
stant gray-blue  of  the  sky  becomes  hateful,  the  well- 
known  forms  of  the  surrounding  landscape,  of  which 
nothing  is  relieved  and  nothing  veiled,  sicken  you  like 
the  mechanical  repetition  of  a  tune  on  the  barrel-organ  : 
day  after  day  you  look  vainly  for  the  change  that  will 
not  come,  and  you  sink  at  last  into  a  kind  of  despond- 
ency, which  looks  upon  the  condition  of  the  world 
as  hopeless,  a  globe  whose  wretched  inhabitants  are 
slowly  roasted  before  a  'steady  central  fire  from  which 
there  is  no  escape.  This  temper  has  been  accurately 
described,  or  rather  the  feeling  of  it  has  been  conveyed 
to  the  reader,  by  Tennyson  in  '  Mariana  in  the  South.' 
Over  and  over  again,  in  the  poem,  recurs  the  oppres- 
sion of  sunshine,  the  wearisome  monotony  of  light.  She 
dreams  of  native  breezes  and  runlets  babbling  down 


July  —  '  Mariana  in  the  South!          217 

the   glen,   but    awakes    to    the   'steady   glare'   of  the 
south :  — 

'  She  woke  :  the  babble  of  the  stream 
Fell,  and  without  the  steady  glare 
Shrank  one  sick  olive  sere  and  small. 
The  river-bed  was  dusty-white  ; 
And  all  the  furnace  of  the  light 
Struck  up  against  the  blinding  wall.' 

In  the  last  stanza  but  one  the  same  note  recurs  : — 

'  And  flaming  downward  over  all 

From  heat  to  heat  the  day  decreased, 
And  slowly  rounded  to  the  east 
The  one  black  shadow  from  the  wall.' 

This  last  touch  of  the  black  shadow  is  a  repetition 
of  one  given  in  the  opening  of  the  poem,  where  the 
black  shadow  is  the  very  first  thing  mentioned.  It  was 
rightly  chosen  for  two  reasons,  since  not  only  did  it 
prepare  the  reader  for  the  black  shadow  dwelling 
steadily  on  a  hopeless  life,  but  it  also  truly  depicted 
an  effect  of  glaring  sunshine  upon  landscape.  Here, 
again,  is  a  very  common  error  of  northern  criticism. 
In  the  north  the  black  shadow  does  not  exist,  because 
the  sun  is  not  glaring  enough  to  produce  it,  and  north- 
ern criticism  denies  the  truth  of  it  when  adequately 
interpreted  in  painting.  The  poet  is  not  scientifically 
exact  in  calling  the  shadow  black,  as  a  painter  in  study- 
ing from  Nature  will  find  it  to  be  gray  or  green,  purple 
or  brown,  according  to  its  situation  ;  but  as  a  poet- 
ical artist  Tennyson  chose  the  right  word,  for  it  is 
the  word  which  conveys  the  idea  of  darkness  best, — 


2 1 8  July  —  The  Black  Shadow. 

'dark*  not  being  dark  enough.  It  would  be  easy,  too, 
to  prove  that  a  painter  who  conveys  the  impression  of 
the  black  shadow  paints  it  falsely.  Auguste  Bonheur 
may  be  mentioned  as  an  example.  He  paints  southern 
sunshine  truly  so  far  as  the  impression  on  the  spectator 
is  concerned,  falsely  as  to  imitation  of  particular  tints. 
In  very  intense  sunshine  the  eye  adapts  itself  to  cir- 
cumstan  *es,  and  for  its  own  protection  contracts  so  that 
a  glaring  thing,  such  as  a  white  ox,  shall  not  hurt  it. 
Now,  if  you  can  look  at  a  white  ox  at  all  in  the  glare  of 
a  Burgundy  July,  even  the  lighted  side  of  an  oak-tree 
will  seem  dark  to  you,  and  a  cast  shadow  on  foliage 
will  seem  what  in  popular  language  is  called  'black.' 
Auguste  Bonheur  renders  this  effect  with  great  truth, 
but  necessarily  in  a  much  lower  key  than  Nature's. 
And  now  comes  the  one  important  consideration  which 
reconciles  art  with  Nature,  and  is  always  overlooked  by 
writers  on  these  subjects.  The  eye  looking  at  Nature 
in  glaring  light,  and  the  eye  looking  at  a  picture  in 
the  quiet  light  of  a  gallery,  is  not  in  the  same  state ; 
but  a  picture  of  sunshine  painted  on  Auguste  Bonheur' s 
principles  bears  the  same  relation  to.  the  open  pupil 
in  a  shaded  room,  that  the  natural  scene  bore  to  the 
contracted  pupil  in  the  brilliant  sunshine  out  of  doors. 
The  rule  which  affirms  that  if  you  match  shades  by 
holding  the  palette-knife  up  to  Nature  you  will  get  right 
relations  of  color,  is  true  only  of  figure-painting  and 
still-life,  when  the  model  is  carefully  placed  in  a  gal- 
lery light.  In  open  sunshine  such  a  practice  would 
induce  an  artist  to  paint  in  too  high  a  key,  so  that  he 


July  —  Sunshine  of  different  Degrees.     2 1 9 

could  not  convey  the  sense  of  darkness  in  shadow  and 
local  color,  which  is  one  of  the  peculiar  effects  of  really 
intense  light.  Thus  Turner,  working  in  a  high  key, 
expressed  the  sunshine  of  England ;  but  his  system, 
good  as  it  was  for  the  pale  northern  landscape,  was 
inadequate  to  the  expression  of  the  southern  summer, 
with  its  apparently  dark  dull  greens  and  grays,  and 
shadows  far  darker  still.* 

The  chief  misery  of  a  long  hot  season  —  the  want  of 
water — is  entirely  unknown  in  the  Val  Ste.  Veronique, 
where  the  pure  little  streams  rush  over  their  clean 
granite  beds  with  as  much  vivacity  as  if  it  had  been 
raining  the  day  before.  They  are  fed  by  springs  in 
the  upper  hills,  which  never  fail  in  the  hot  weather, 
and  the  consequence  is  a  perennial  refreshment  of 
the  valleys  for  several  miles ;  but  if  you  follow  these 
babbling  rivulets  farther  down,  you  observe  the  gradual 
loss  of  their  early  freshness  and  brightness,  till  finally 
they  are  absorbed  in  the  river  of  the  plain,  and  in  great 
part  lost  by  evaporation.  Nothing,  even  in  winter  sce- 
nery, is  drearier  than  the  bed  of  some  broad  southern 
river  after  the  torrid  months  have  dried  it.  The  Loire, 
amongst  French  rivers,  most  abounds  in  dreary  scenes 
of  this  kind.  For  hundreds  of  miles  you  may  follow 
broad  tracts  of  burning  sand,  or  hot  white  pebbles 
through  which  the  stream  finds  its  way  tortuously,  often 

*  This  seeming  darkness  of  certain  tints  in  intense  sunshine  is 
chiefly,  no  doubt,  due  to  contrast.  As  a  matter  of  fact  (not  of  human 
sensation),  Tennyson's  'black  shadows'  must  be  lighter  than  a  white 
object  in  dull  daylight.  But  art  ought  always  to  go  by  impressions  and 
sensations  rather  than  scientific  facts. 


2  2O  July  —  Processions  for  Rain. 

breaking  into  several  different  channels,  of  which  not 
one  is  navigable ;  whilst  the  occasional  trees  along  the 
banks  are  too  far  from  the  water  to  get  the  slightest 
benefit  from  it,  and  their  foliage  is  burnt  to  the  sem- 
blance of  a  premature  autumn.  The  most  important 
affluents  in  such  a  time  often  cease  to  flow  altogether, 
and  consist  of  nothing  but  a  long  series  of  stagnant 
pools,  which  infect  the  air,  with  hot  stones  or  baked 
mud  between  them.  At  such  a  time  the  great  bridges 
seem  nothing  but  lines  of  useless  arches  built  long  ago 
for  some  forgotten  purpose.  Leaves  wither,  flowers 
fade,  the  pastures  are  scorched,  and  animals  droop  and 
languish.  Yet,  even  here,  might  the  art  of  a  true 
landscape-painter  find  motives,  like  that  of  the  poet, 
in  the  very  desolation  of  the  persistent  sunshine,  which 
has  its  own  melancholy  like  the  gloom  of  the  north, 
and,  like  it,  cannot  be  borne  without  resignation.  The 
starving  herds  resign  themselves  to  a  condition  of  Na- 
ture beyond  their  power  to  alter ;  the  peasants  go  to 
the  priests  and  ask  them  to  pray  for  rain,  or  get  up 
some  procession.  At  length,  in  some  ancient  city,  the 
cathedral  doors  are  opened  wide,  and  out  of  the  cool 
pleasant  gloom  within  comes  forth  into  the  fierce  heat 
of  an  August  afternoon  a  mitred  bishop,  all  gleaming 
with  gold  and  jewels,  behind  a  heavy  shrine  carried  on 
eight  priests'  shoulders,  with  little  windows  in  its  gilded 
sides,  through  which  you  may  see  the  brown  bones 
of  a  saint  who  died  long  ago,  and  a  long  procession 
winds  slowly  chanting  about  the  quaint  old  streets. 
Then  the  evening  comes  with  its  short  twilight,  and  the 


July  —  Oppressive  Heat.  221 

night  without  a  breath  in  the  motionless  hot  air.  The 
day  dawns  just  like  yesterday  and  the  unnumbered 
days  before  it.  Will  there  ever  be  any  change,  or  has 
the  sea  forgotten  to  send  her  clouds  for  the  refreshment 
of  the  land  ?  Is  the  sea  dry  like  the  rivers  ? 

'  Tout  est  morne,  brulant,  tranquille  ;  et  la  lumiere 
Est  seule  en  mouvement  dans  la  nature  entiere.' 

Suddenly  in  the  fiery  sky  rolled  a  black  cloud,  like 
volumes  of  smoke  from  a  mine,  and  out  of  the  cloud 
came  a  ball  of  fire  that  struck  an  ash-tree  close  to  the 
house  and  split  it,  and  sent  fragments  of  the  wood  in 
every  direction  like  scattered  lucifer-matches.  Half  a 
second  afterwards  came  a  sound,  not  like  thunder  with 
its  reverberations,  but  like  a  deafening  explosion.  The 
next  day  every  leaf  on  that  .ash-tree  was  shrivelled  and 
brown,  and  the  tree  died.  Then  began  the  usual  series 
of  thunderstorms,  and  every  night  the  landscape  was 
illuminated  by  the  flames  of  farm-buildings  in  the  dis- 
tance, and  every  morning  brought  news  of  loss  or  ruin, 
of  crops  destroyed  or  animals  too  frightened  to  move 
burnt  together  in  their  stalls.  So  after  the  steady  flame 
of  the  sunshine  comes  the  far  more  terrible  flame  of  the 
unavoidable  lightning,  and  all  night  long  the  peasant, 
awake  and  anxious,  goes  watching  about  his  barns. 


222  July  —  The  Harvest-time 


XL. 


The  Harvest-time  —  What  our  Bread  costs  —  Merriment  in  Harvest  — 
Strength  of  the  Girls  —  A  Picture  by  Jules  Breton  —  Jules  Breton's 
Poetry  —  Alfred  de  Musset — The  '  Chanson  de  Fortunio'  —  Rossetti 
—  'The  Blessed  Damozel'  —  Stalks  of  Wheat  —  Weight  of  Wheat 
needed  in  the  World  —  Buckwheat. 

THERE  is  a  time  of  the  year,  varying  in  date  with 
the  climate  of  different  places,  which  is  felt  by 
all  to  be  the  richest  and  mellowest  time,  and  that  is 
when  the  wheat  is  garnered.  The  reapers  go  down 
from  the  hill  villages  into  the  fertile  plains,  walking  in 
bands  through  the  sultry  night,  when  not  a  cloud 
obscures  the  starry  sky,  and  the  broad  yellow  harvest- 
moon  comes  up  in  the  east  to  light  them.  Many  a 
league  do  they  march,  singing  the  old  harvest  songs, 
and  at  sunrise  they  are  at  work  already  in  the  ripe 
wheat,  and  their  sickles  are  set  to  the  harvest.  Oh  the 
toil  and  the  endurance  that  are  paid  for  the  bread  we 
eat !  From  dawn  to  dusk,  in  the  full  blaze  of  morning, 
noon,  and  afternoon,  the  reapers  reap  without  ceasing, 
except  their  little  half-hours  for  food,  and  in  the  late 
evening  they  load  the  harvest-wains.  All  that  time 
they  have  to  bend  to  their  toil,  with  the  heat  of  the 
earth  in  their  faces  and  the  heat  of  the  sun  upon  their 
backs.  Their  food  is  poor  indeed,  and  the  wonder  is 
how  it  supplies  the  waste  of  sweat  and  toil.  And  yet 


July  —  A  Picture  by  Jules  Breton.        223 

they  all  delight  in  the  harvest-time,  and  keep  to  their 
work  gaily  with  many  a  merry  jest.  The  strength  of 
the  girls  is  surprising ;  often  a  girl  will  lead  the  line 
and  keep  up  to  her  work  quite  steadily,  which  confirms 
the  theory  that  women  were  made  for  labor.  One  of 
these  strong  girls  was  the  subject  of  a  picture  by  Jules 
Breton ;  but  in  his  picture  she  has  done  with  reaping, 
and  sits  apart  from  her  companions,  who  are  dancing, 
for  they  forget  their  fatigues  in  the  dance.  She  has 
reasons  of  her  own  for  not  joining  them  ;  very  likely 
some  feeling  of  jealousy  or  disappointment ;  perhaps  a 
certain  youth  may  have  invited  another  maiden,  and 
now,  according  to  peasant  custom,  is  engaged  to  her 
for  the  whole  evening.  Jules  Breton  writes  admirable 
verses,  and  in  a  little  poem  of  his,  which  has  been  pub- 
lished, I  find  some  stanzas  which  may  refer  to  this  very 
picture :  — 

'  Dans  la-  poussiere  ardente  et  les  rayons  de  flammes 
Joyeusement,  les  mains  aux  mains,  dansent  les  femmes, 
Mais  la  plus  belle  reve,  assise  un  peu  plus  loin. 
Elle  est  la  seule 

No  wonder  that  painters  like  the  harvest-time,  it  is 
so  rich  in  color,  and  in  the  association  of  human  life 
and  labor  with  the  bountiful  gifts  of  Nature.  The  toil 
that  it  brings  is  sweet  and  healthy  toil,  and  the  only 
laborers  who  are  really  to  be  pitied  are  the  few  weaker 
ones  whose  strength  is  hardly  equal  to  the  work.  For 
the  rest  it  is  a  time  of  merriment  and  gladness,  a  change 
of  scene  and  of  society  for  the  laborers  who  come 
from  a  distance,  and  the  pay  is  far  higher  than  in 


224  July  —  Alfred  de  Musset. 

ordinary  times,  which  also  disposes  the  heart  of  man 
to  gayety. 

Wheat  is  almost  sacred  from  the  great  service  it 
yields  to  man,  so  that  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  poets 
should  speak  of  it  with  an  especial  tenderness  and 
delicacy.  Thus  Alfred  de  Musset,  in  one  of  his  most 
exquisite  little  songs,  the  4  Chanson  de  Fortunio,'  com- 
pares the  fairness  of  a  fair  lady  to  wheat,  and  with 
how  pure  a  touch !  . 

*  Si  vous  croyez  que  je  vais  dire 

Qui  j'ose  aimer, 
Je  ne  saurais  pour  un  empire 

Vous  la  nommer. 
Nous  aliens  chanter  a  la  ronde 

Si  vous  voulez, 
Que  je  1'adore,  et  qu'elle  est  blonde 

Comme  les  bl£s.' 

And  when  Rossetti  describes  the  Blessed  Damozel 
in  heaven,  he  can  think  of  no  more  delicate  comparison 
for  her  hair  than  to  say  that  it  was  like  ripe  corn  :  — 

*  Her  hair  that  lay  along  her  back 
Was  yellow  like  ripe  corn.' 

A  stalk  of  wheat  is  not  a  very  strong  thing  ;  it  can 
only  just  bear  the  weight  of  a  very  little  bird,  and  even 
that  seems  wonderful  till  we  reflect  how  light  a  small 
bird  is,  and  how  perfectly  it  is  able  to  balance  itself ; 
and  yet  on  these  slender  stalks  what  an  enormous 
weight  of  bread-making  material  is  carried !  Many  a 
great  ship  is  deeply  laden  with  it,  many  a  granary-floor 
is  covered  till  the  great  oak-beams  visibly  bend  beneath 


July  —  Buckwheat. 


225 


the  load !  And  what  tons  upon  tons  of  it  does  the 
world  need !  There  are  more  or  less  acceptable  sub- 
stitutes, but  always  far  inferior  to  the  wheat  that  gives 
white  bread.  One  of  these,  buckwheat,  a  cultivated 
polygonum,  is  now  in  much  favor  with  the  peasants, 
and  ought  to  be  with  artists  also,  on  account  of  its 
wonderfully  rich  color.  It  is  called  sarrasin  in  France, 
because  the  Moors  took  it  into  Spain,  whence  it  came 
northward.  It  grows  easily  on  soil  too  poor  for  wheat, 
and  you  may  now  see  many  little  fields  of  it  up  amongst 
the  rocks  in  the  poorer  and  wilder  districts.  Early  in 
September  it  is  in  the  full  richness  of  its  color,  the 
stalks  being  of  a  beautiful  red,  that  is  easily  heightened 
when  there  are  warm  tones  in  the  general  light,  which 
often  happens  at  that  season  of  the  year. 


UNIVERSITY 


226  A  ugust  —  Soapwort. 


XLI. 

Soapwort  —  Use  of  Soapwort  —  Horsemint  —  Common  Mint  —  Wild 
Carrot  —  Vervein  —  Polygonum  —  Change  —  Dock-leaves,  their  Color 
—  Hornbeam  —  Juniper  — ;  Bracken  —  Heather  —  Cherry —  Moun- 
tain-Ash. 

LET  us  take  a  last  look  at  the  wild  flowers  before 
the  season  for  them  is  quite  over.  We  never 
could  have  omitted  all  mention  of  that  handsome  plant, 
the  common  soapwort,  or  Saponaria,  which  in  August 
is  prodigal  of  its  large  flowers,  pink  or  nearly  white,  in 
dense  corymbs  at  the  summit  of  the  stem.  Every  house- 
wife in  country  places  where  the  plant  grows,  and  where 
people  are  simple  enough  and  sensible  enough  to  accept 
a  benefit  directly  from  Nature  without  going  to  a  shop 
for  it,  —  every  housewife  so  situated  well  knows  that  to 
put  this  plant  into  her  washing-tub  is  as  good  as  a  lump 
of  soap.  It  grows  abundantly  by  the  streams  here,  so 
those  two  great  aids  to  cleanliness,  soap  and  water,  are 
given  by  Nature  together.  The  saponaria  is  not  only 
useful  but  beautiful:  a  stately,  handsome  plant,  that 
holds  quite  an  important  place,  especially  on  the  little 
islets  in  the  streams;  but  the  pale  tender  color  of  its 
flowers  is  not  so  conspicuous  as  the  brilliant  yellow  of 
the  senecio,  for  example,  which  abounds  at  the  same 
season.  However,  it  is  not  merely  for  brilliancy  that  a 
plant  may  have  pictorial  value:  sometimes  the  very 


A  ugust  —  Horsemint.  227 

opposite  of  brilliancy  may  be  the  reason  why  a  judicious 
artist  would  care  for  it.  There  is  horsemint,  whose  pale 
cottony  leaves  are  very  valuable  as  a  cool  gray  green. 
I*  makes  great  masses  in  some  places,  and  has  much  the 
same  qualities  as  the  mullein,  except  as  to  the  flowers  ; 
for  whilst  those  of  the  mullein  are  of  a  fine  lemon- 
yellow,  the  tiny  flowers  of  horsemint  merely  make  a  sort 
of  pale  purplish  gray.  The  flowers  of  common  mint 
are  much  more  visible,  and  have  some  effect  in  quantity. 
The  large  white  umbel  of  the  wild  carrot  is  extremely 
common  at  this  season,  but  cannot  be  said  to  add  much 
to  the  beauty  of  foregrounds,  except  perhaps  by  giv- 
ing a  certain  lightness.  We  must  not  omit  that  sacred 
plant,  the  vervein,  which  the  Romans  used  in  their  re- 
ligious ceremonies,  and  which  in  war-time  was  carried 
by  heralds  as  the  white  flag  of  truce  is  now.  The 
Druids  had  a  great  respect  for  it  also,  and  only  culled 
it  after  a  sacrifice.  This  plant  appears  to  make  a  great 
fuss  at  starting  near  the  ground  with  very  big  leaves,  to 
end  meagrely  at  the  top,  where  the  twigs  and  flowers 
are  so  thin  and  small.  The  tiny  pale  violet  flowers  are, 
however,  effective  in  the  same  way,  though  not  to  the 
same  degree,  as  those  of  the  forget-me-not.  Sometimes 
they  fill  a  ditch,  for  hundreds  of  yards,  with  their  in- 
numerable constellations. 

One  of  the  most  beautiful  and  important  of  all 
aquatic  plants  is  the  amphibious  polygonum.  Its  rosy 
flowers  stand  up  boldly  above  the  surface  of  the  water, 
whilst  its  long  green  leaves  float  upon  it.  This  is  a 
good  plant  to  study  for  pictures  that  have  a  pond  or  a 


228  August —  Change. 

stream  in  the  foreground,  as  it  detaches  itself  well,  and 
the  flat  leaves  give  a  good  horizontal  surface,  whilst  the 
erect  flower  supplies  a  vertical  object  of  the  greatest  use 
for  contrast.  There  is  a  good  contrast  of  color,  too, 
between  the  flower  and  the  leaf. 

It  would  be  tiresome  to  prolong  this  into  a  mere  cat- 
alogue, and  the  limits  of  these  sylvan  talks  are  nearly 
reached.  Vegetation  never  stands  still,  but  there  is  a 
time  when  it  appears  to  pause,  before  the  change  tow- 
ards decay.  Yet  even  then  the  change  has  already 
begun,  and  you  have  only  to  look  around  you  to  find 
evidences  of  the  coming  destruction.  In  meadows  and 
pastures  the  "docks  soon  take  their  rich  deep  red  of 
leaves  and  fruit,  the  stalks  being  yellowish  streaked  with 
red,  and  quite  harmonious  ;  they  are  a  most  important 
element  of  landscape.  The  curled  dock  makes  especi- 
ally magnificent  color,  with  its  dark-red  stalks  and  leaves. 
Some  of  the  leaves  of  hornbeam  turn  pale  yellow,  and 
others  dark  red.  You  have  them  pale  yellow,  dark  red, 
and  fresh  green,  quite  on  the  same  branch  or  twig.  The 
juniper  turns  red  altogether,  much  resembling  the  tint 
known  to  painters  and  colormen  as  light  red ;  but  this 
happens  capriciously,  as  it  seems,  to  one  plant,  whilst 
others  in  the  same  place  remain  quite  green  as  in  sum- 
mer. At  the  same  time  the  bracken  is  just  beginning 
to  turn  yellowish  brown  at  the  tips  and  edges  of  the 
leaves.  The  crude  violet  purple  of  the  heather  is  en- 
tirely gone,  and  in  its  place  we  have  a  sad  brown 
in  the  flowers.  The  leaves  of  the  wild  cherry-trees  are 
beginning  to  turn  red,  and  the  robinia  leaves  are  turning 


A  ugust  —  Mountain-A  s/i.  229 

pale  yellow.  But  where  in  all  Nature  is  there  such  a  red 
as  the  vermilion  berries  of  the  rowan-tree,  or  mountain- 
ash,  the  sorbier  des  oiseaux  ?  There  are  such  prodigal 
quantities  of  it,  too  !  I  know  a  little  village  churchyard, 
with  a  tiny  old  gray  church,  and  just  along  the  wall 
there  grows  a  row  of  rowan-trees  that  look  like  the 
trees  in  the  garden  of  Aladdin  when  the  fire  of  sunset 
is  upon  them  ;  and  there  is  a  place  near  a  mountain 
village  where  the  road  winds  between  an  avenue  of 
them,  —  a  sight  to  see  in  the  autumn ! 


230        September — Sunlight  on  Thistles. 


XLII. 

Sunset-light  on  Thistles  —  Fruits  not  generally  Conspicuous  —  The 
Rowan  —  The  common  Cornel  —  Elder-berry  —  Blackberry  —  Small 
Polygonum  —  Ferns  —  Persicaria  —  Wild  Hop. 

I  SPOKE  just  now  of  vermilion  berries  bathed  in 
the  flame  of  sunset,  and  will  add  another  obser- 
vation about  sunset-light.  One  of  the  finest  sights  in 
Nature  is  a  field  of  thistles  in  September,  with  the  level 
rays  of  a  golden  sunset  striking  across  and  catching  the 
down  of  the  heads.  The  light  is  detained  by  them,  and 
in  them  as  it  were,  so  that  each  thistle-head  becomes 
a  distinct  source  of  light ;  not  with  glittering  reflection 
like  the  ripples  on  water,  but  with  a  charming  softness, 
as  if  the  rays  were  entangled  in  meshes  of  floss  silk. 

The  reader  may  think,  that  after  saying  so  much 
about  flowers  I  dismiss  fruits  very  summarily ;  but  it 
so  happens  that  fruits  (I  use  the  word,  of  course,  in 
the  large  botanical  sense)  are,  as  a  general  rule,  less 
visible  than  flowers,  and  in  these  chapters  we  have 
talked  almost  exclusively  of  what  is  visible.  Some 
fruits  are  conspicuous,  like  those  of  the  rowan-tree 
lately  mentioned;  and  the  black,  bitter  fruit  of  the 
common  cornel,  or  dogwood,  is  visible  enough  at  the 
beginning  of  autumn  in  the  hedges,  the  smooth  leaves 
turning  pale  as  the  fruit  ripens.  The  elder-berries  are 


September  —  Blackberry.  231 

out  at  the  same  time,  berries  from  which  a  wine  is  made 
greatly  inferior  to  that  from  the  flowers  of  the  same 
tree.  It  may  be  mentioned  as  a  little  detail  worth  re- 
membering for  foreground  color,  that  the  fruit  of  the 
blackberry  is  red  before  it  turns  black.  The  leaves 
of  the  bramble  are,  however,  more  important  than  the 
fruit,  as  they  have  quite  a  peculiar  way  of  changing 
color  in  autumn.  Many  of  them  turn  bright  red  quite 
suddenly,  whilst  quantities  of  others  will  be  spotted 
with  dark  purple.  The  isolation  of  the  red  leaves  may 
be  of  use  to  an  artist  who  wants  an  intense  color  in 
small  quantities.  A  very  valuable  cause  of  color  in  some 
situations  is  the  small  polygonum,  which,  with  its  red 
stalk  and  leaves  just  turning  yellow,  produces  the  most 
beautiful  dark  gold  in  mass.  The  ferns  begin  to  take 
autumnal  color  rather  capriciously ;  it  seems  to  seize 
upon  some  leaves  to  the  neglect  of  others,  and  these 
leaves  will  be  entirely  affected  by  it,  passing  from  dark 
brown  near  the  root  to  yellow  at  the  end.  One  of  the 
latest  flowering  plants  is  the  fine  polygonum  called 
Persicaria,  often  nearly  two  feet  high,  with  a  red  stalk 
and  spikes  of  rosy  flowers  ;  but  the  stalk  strikes  the 
eye  more  than  the  flowers  do.  A  very  familiar  plant, 
the  wild  hop,  has  an  appearance  at  this  season  which 
bears  some  resemblance  to  flowers.  The  scales  of  the 
spike  become  enlarged  so  as  to  entirely  conceal  the 
fruit;  and  these  dry  scales  are  visible 'in  September  as 
a  pleasant  light  brown,  the  leaves  being  still  green. 


2  3  2  October  —  Ferns. 


XLIII. 

Ferns  —  Robinia  —  Oak,   Birch,   Ash  —  Poplar  —  Chestnut  —  Cherry 
and  Pear  —  Pear  —  Hornbeam  —  Beech  —  Willow. 

AS  we  get  deeper  into  autumn  the  changes  of  vege- 
tation accelerate.  The  ferns  turn  red  and  yel- 
low to  begin  with,  to  end  in  a  uniform  dry  light  red  ; 
generally  the  change  is  completed  about  the  middle  of 
October.  Some  trees  turn  yellow  in  places,  a  leaf  or  two 
at  a  time,  like  the  walnut ;  the  robinia  does  the  same : 
indeed,  in  the  robinia  it  is  not  by  leaves  but  by  leaflets 
that  the  process  begins.  Oak,  birch,  and  ash,  begin  by 
showing  yellow  leaves  here  and  there,  like  a  sudden 
attack  of  disease ;  but,  considered  as  a  whole,  an  ash- 
tree  passes  from  green  through  pale  yellowish-green  to 
yellow.  The  poplar  yellows  all  over  gradually.  Chest- 
nuts at  this  time  are  much  denuded  of"  leaves  ;  those 
which  remain  are  green,  or  brown,  or  yellow,  about  one- 
third  of  each,  and  the  yellow  ones  are  often  brown 
about  their  edges.  Cherry  and  pear-trees  give  most  of 
the  red  in  the  woods,  the  latter  often  reaching  a  bright 
scarlet,  which  tells  with  great  effect  in  the  distance. 
Some  pear-trees  turn  darker  than  others,  and  there  are 
often  both  vivid  red  and  fresh  green  together  on  the 
same  tree.  So  in  hornbeam ;  you  have  pale  yellow 
leaves  and  leaves  of  reddish  gold,  whilst  the  rest  are 


October  —  A  ngelica.  233 

fresh  green.  In  beech  there  are  three  colors,  —  light 
red,  yellowish  red,  and  green.  A  few  days  later  the  pale 
yellow  tinge  of  hornbeam  is  entirely  gone,  and  has  given 
place  to  a  rusty  brown.  Meanwhile  the  willows  remain 
still  perfectly  green. 


XLIV. 

Angelica  —  Leaves  of  Angelica  —  Bramble  —  Blackberry  —  Scabious  — 
Honeysuckle  —  Tufted  Hair-grass. 

OF  foreground  plants,  the  angelica  may  be  men- 
tioned for  its  important  size.  The  leaves  are  but 
little  seen,  being  for  the  most  part  low  down  upon  the 
stem,  but  they  become  a  very  pale  green,  and  turn 
whitish  or  yellowish,  often  also  inclining  to  purple.  At 
the  same  time  the  angelica  becomes  brown  in  the  um- 
bels, because  the  fruit  is  ripening  fast ;  in  doing  which 
it  turns  from  green  to  brown.  A  little  later,  the  leaves 
turn  pure  Naples  yellow.  Once  more,  for  the  last  time, 
we  must  mention  the  bramble,  now  most  rich  in  color 
with  deep  crimson  or  bright  vermilion,  passing  to  russet 
and  green,  and  the  abundant  black  fruit  for  a  rich  dark 
at  the  bottom  of  the  scale.  When  the  morning  mists 
of  October  clear  away  and  the  bright  sunshine  succeeds, 
as  it  does  regularly  about  eleven  o'clock,  all  the  black- 
berry leaves  glitter  in  the  bright  light,  and  many  of 


234  October —  Tufted  Hair-grass. 

them  show  a  colored  transparence  like  jewels.  At  the 
same  time  they  are  often  covered  with  threads  of  gos- 
samer, on  which  are  hung  millions  of  minute  drops, 
each  of  them  clearer  than  a  diamond,  and  with  a  sparkle 
of  light  inside  it.  Even  so  late  as  this  you  may  occa- 
sionally find  a  flower  in  all  its  perfection  —  the  scabious, 
for  instance  —  which  preserves  for  us  the  memory  of 
summer.  A  few  honeysuckle  flowers  may  be  found  in 
October,  although  the  plant  is  generally  in  berry.  The 
tall  grasses  become  very  beautiful  at  this  season ;  the 
tufted  hair-grass  may  be  mentioned  specially  for  the  re- 
markable way  in  which  it  catches  the  light.  Under 
the  sun  it  seems  full  of  warm  yellow  light,  almost  as  if 
it  were  luminous  by  a  light  of  its  own  ;  indeed  the  sun- 
shine seems  to  get  entangled  amongst  it  as  in  the  down 
of  a  thistle,  and  this  often  gives  great  splendor  to  a  fore- 
ground, but  the  effect  is  to  be  seen  only  when  you  are 
looking  towards  the  sun. 


October —  Close  of  our  Sylvan  Year.      235 


XLV. 

Close  of  our  Sylvan  Year  —  What  is  a  Year  ? —  My  Schemes — "Alexis 
—  Master  and  Pupil  —  Holidays  —  Alexis  and  the  Gamekeeper  —  A 
Private  Tutor —A  Young  Abbe  —  Our  Dinner- table  —  The  Abbe  sees 
a  Ghost— Alexis  turns  Sportsman  —  What  Alexis  learned  during 
the  Sylvan  Year  —  Conclusion. 

HERE,  perhaps,  it  is  well  that  these  notes  should 
come  to  an  end  ;  for  we  began  them  with  the  late 
autumn,  and  have  now  completed  our  cycle.  Our  year 
of  retirement,  our  sylvan  year,  is  drawing  to  its  close, 
and  we  leave  the  Val  Ste.  Veronique  to  return  to  the 
outer  world.  We  always  begin  by  expecting  too  much 
from  the  time  that  lies  before  us,  as  if  the  experience  of 
the  past  were  not  there  for  a  warning,  with  its  long  list 
of  schemes  unrealized,  its  losses  (especially  of  time),  and 
its  disappointments.  When  I  came  with  Alexis  to  our 
lonely  house  in  the  valley,  I  expected  more  from  this 
space  of  calm  and  peace  than  it  appears  to  have  yielded 
now  that  it  lies  behind  me  in  a  retrospect.  '  A  year,'  I 
thought,  'will  do  much  towards  the  healing  of  my 
sorrows  ;  and  in  a  year  I  can  learn  much,  and  acquire 
a  beneficial  influence  over  Alexis/  But  what  is  a  year 
in  the  life  of  a  mature  man  ?  All  the  old  impressions 
remain  just  as  vivid  after  it  as  before;  and  the  more 
painful  they  were  then,  the  more  vivid  they  are  now. 
Still  the  stud)  of  Nature  has  been  good  for  me,  and  it 


236  October — My  Schemes. 

is  agreeable  to  have  renewed  or  increased  one's  ac- 
quaintance with  the  sylvan  world.  My  plans  for  doing 
something  in  science,  and  art,  and  literary  study,  were 
larger  than  my  powers  of  realization  in  so  limited  a 
space  of  time :  however,  they  have  constantly  and  not 
unprofitably  occupied  me.  The  paternal  scheme,  with 
reference  to  Alexis,  has  been  farther  from  any  perfect 
realization  than  the  others.  I  had  counted  upon  his 
companionship  in  my  pursuits,  and  hoped  that  I  might 
be  able  to  teach  him  a  good  deal  without  his  suspecting 
that  he  was  being  instructed ;  but  he  very  soon  found 
this  out,  and  by  calling  every  thing  a  lesson  compelled 
me  to  fix  regular  hours  for  study,  exactly  as  if  we  had 
been  master  and  pupil  at  a  school  :  in  fact,  he  called 
them  '  school-hours/  and  asked  for  his  liberty  at  other 
times,  or  took  it.  He  had  full  holiday  on  Thursday 
and  Saturday,  on  which  days  I  was  in  no  danger  of 
being  disturbed  by  him,  for  he  never  made  his  appear- 
ance, but  went  great  distances  on  foot  with  my  keeper 
(who  had  been  known  as  a  famous  poacher  under  the 
nickname  of  *  the  Weasel ').  In  a  word,  I  discovered 
that  my  didactic  propensities  must  be  greatly  restrained 
if  I  did  not  wish  to  frighten  this  young  bird  away  into 
the  woods  altogether.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  im- 
possible to  suspend  his  education  for  twelve  months. 
In  this  perplexity  I  took  a  neighbor  (who  lived  ten 
miles  off)  into  my  confidence,  and  he  recommended 
a  private  tutor  for  the  young  gentleman.  The  plan 
seemed  feasible,  and  the  more  so  that  there  were  so 
many  spare  rooms  at  the  Val  Ste.  Ve"ronique :  so  one 


October — A  Young  Abbe.  237 

day  a  young  abb£  arrived,  who  knew,  I  suppose,  what 
every  abb£  knows,  but  who  was  utterly  incapable  of 
conversation,  and  replied  always  in  monosyllables,  with  a 
modesty  that  was  perfectly  irritating.  My  dinner-table 
had  been  tolerable  with  Alexis,  when  I  did  not  put  him 
out  of  humor  by  attempting  to  convey  instruction  to 
his  mind ;  but  it  was  not  tolerable  with  the  abb<£,  and 
the  long  spaces  of  silence  must  have  been  as  uncomfort- 
able to  him  as  to  me,  for  he  made  a  request  that  he 
might  be  served  in  his  own  apartments,  —  a  relief  both 
to  him  and  me.  He  had  not  been  accustomed,  how- 
ever, to  solitude,  so  that  the  silence  of  the  big  house, 
where  we  never  heard  any  thing  but  the  whistling  of  the 
wind,  or  the  cry  of  a  bird  or  wild  animal  in  the  forest, 
ended  by  preying  upon  his  mind  ;  and  one  day,  pale  with 
terror,  he  declared  he  had  seen  a  ghost,  and  announced 
his  sudden  departure.  From  a  malicious  look  of  Alexis, 
I  suspected  that  he  knew  more  about  the  ghost  than 
he  chose  to  tell ;  however,  the  abb£  left  us  with  an  un- 
earthly expression  on  his  otherwise  not  very  interesting 
physiognomy,  and  when  he  was  gone  I  attempted  to 
resume  my  former  office  of  pedagogue.  My  young  pu- 
pil, however,  affirmed  that  it  was  now  the  long  vaca- 
tion, when  nobody  learned  any  thing ;  and  no  sooner  had 
the  shooting  season  begun  than  he  got  himself  invited 
to  a  chateau  twenty  miles  off,  where,  with  a  merry  party 
of  young  gentlemen,  he  did  nothing  but  shoot  from 
morning  till  night.  I  was  vexed  with  him  at  first 
for  his  indifference  to  learning,  his  insensibility  to  the 
melancholy  events  which  had  happened  in  our  family, 


238  October  —  Conclusion. 

and  his  pleasure  in  escaping  from  my  own  paternal 
society  ;  but  a  little  reflection  soon  set  me  right  on 
these  points.  His  was  not  the  age  when  learning  of 
any  kind  is  a  solace  or  a  pleasure,  nor  does  the  for- 
tunate elasticity  of  youth  accept  any  bereavement, 
however  terrible,  as  a  sufficient  reason  for  perpetual 
sadness ;  whilst  as  to  the  charms  of  my  own  society, 
I  quite  understood  that  a  lad,  who  for  nine  months  had 
sat  at  table  opposite  to  a  grave  old  face  like  mine, 
might  wish  to  see  younger  faces  and  merrier.  How- 
ever, I  confess  that  what  Alexis  learned  during  our 
time  at  the  Val  Ste.  Ve*ronique  was  not  of  a  very  intel- 
lectual nature.  He  picked  up  a  good  deal  of  natural 
history  from  the  keeper,  and  acquired  something  of  the 
knowledge  which  distinguishes  Red  Indians,  —  at  least 
in  Cooper's  novels  ;  and  he  educated  his  legs,  for  he 
became  an  excellent  pedestrian.  All  this  is  excellent 
in  its  way ;  but  another  year  of  our  wood-life  would 
turn  the  boy  into  a  half -savage,  and  unfit  him  for  any 
other  society  than  that  of  his  dear  friend,  the  Weasel. 
So  our  experiment -of  sylvan  retirement  is  not  likely  to 
be  repeated,  except  for  briefer  spaces.  We  may,  in 
the  future,  permit  ourselves  the  enjoyment  of  sylvan 
weeks  or  months ;  but  this  long  stay  in  the  Val  Ste. 
V6ronique  will  remain  alone  in  our  memory  as  —  THE 
SYLVAN  YEAR. 


INDEX    TO    "SYLVAN    YEAR." 


Acacia-robinia,  211 

Agriculture,  its  influence  upon  landscape, 

in 

Alder,  in  January,  49 
'Aminta,'  Tasso's,  190 
Anchorite  and  cicada,  182 
Angelica,  in  October,  233 
Apricot-blossoms  in  March,  87 
April  weather,  101 
Arcadia  of  classic  imagination,  185 
Art  and  Botany,  38 
Arum,  148  ;  in  April,  120 
Ash,  grace  of,  49 ;  in  March,  81  ;  in  May, 

156  ;  in  June,  208 ;  its  way  of  changing 

color,  232 
Aspen  poplar,  its  leaves  in  May,  130 

Beech,  1 16 ;  its  young  leaves  in  May,  156 ; 
its  way  of  changing  color  in  autumn, 
233  ;  winter  foliage  of,  36 

Bees,  in 

Birch,  211  ;  its  stem,  43,  116;  in  May, 
157;  its  resistance  to  heat  and  cold, 
ib. ;  its  uses,  ib. ;  a  defence  of,  160 

Bird-catcher,  his  feelings,  140 

Bird-cherry,  in  March,  81 ;  prunus,  161 

Bird-music,  135 

Birds  associated  with  plants,  147  j  songs 
of,  134 ;  language  of,  206-7 

Bishop,  anecdote  of  a  French,  27 

Bittercress,  meadow,  120 

Blackthorn,  its  wintry  coloring,  46 ;  in 
March,  80;  in  spring,  114 

Boar,  the  domesticated,  25  ;  the  wild, 
56 ;  as  food,  35 

Bonheur,  Auguste,  his  painting  of  south- 
ern sunshine,  218  ;  Rosa,  195 


Botany  and  landscape-painting,  37 ;  poet- 
ical, 151 

Bouleau,  Jean,  a  forester,  26 

Boy,  anecdote  of  a,  69 

Bracken,  its  change  of  color  in  August,  228 

Bramble,  in  January,  37  ;  stalks  of,  in  Jan- 
uary, 46 ;  leaves  of,  231 ;  in  October,  233 

Breton,  Jules,  195  ;  a  picture  of  his,  223 

Broom,  green  of,  43  ;  in  flower,  121 ;  its 
loud  self-assertion,  162 

Browning,  Mrs.,  her  use  of  reeds  in 
poetry,  99 

Bryony,  its  roots>  120 

Buckwheat,  225 

Buff  on,  his  description  of  the  nightingale's 
song,  205 

Bugle,  the  creeping,  212 

Buttercup,  its  learned  name,  165 

Byron,  how  he  celebrated  the  nightingale, 


Caltha,  the  marsh,  168 

Canadians,  the  French,  14 

Cantharides,  208 

Celandine,  the  lesser,  107 

Chaucer,  his  intense  love  for  nature,  105 ; 
his  habit  of  early  rising,  124  ;  his  love  of 
daisies,  125  ;  his  description  of  the  col- 
ors of  May,  131  ;  his  allusion  to  birds, 
137-8;  Chaucer  and  Virgil,  173;  his 
abounding  eloquence,  1 74 ;  his  love  of 
the  nightingale,  203 

Cherry-tree,  in  April,  115 

Cherry-trees,  wild,  their  change  of  color 
in  August,  228 

Cherville,  Marquis  de,  his  observation  of 
nest-building,  143 


240 


Index. 


Chestnut,  ancient  trees,  10,  51  ;  pale 
golden  leaves  of  its  broken  branches, 
14 ;  Spanish,  its  young  green  leaves, 
155  ;  the  Spanish,  artistic  merits  of, 
1 60  ;  its  way  of  changing  color  in  au- 
tumn, 232 

Cicada  and  anchorite,  182 

Classical  writers,  their  inferiority  in  the 
passion  for  natural  beauty,  173 

Color,  natural,  in  patches,  43 

Colors,  intense  and  delicate,  163 

Constable,  the  painter,  his  love  of  spring, 
65 ;  his  preference  for  spring,  103 ; 
quoted,  ib.  ;  his  taste  for  a  cultivated 
country,  112 

Cornel,  its  fruit,  230 

Cowper,  his  description  of  the  Empress 
Catherine's  ice-palace,  58 

Cowslip,  in 

Cuckoo,  147,  148 

Cuckoo-flower,  167 

Cuckoo-pint,  167 

Daffodil,  splendor  of,  in  March,  82 
Dante,  his  suffering  trees,  u  ;  his  'selva 

selvaggia,'  15  ;  his  feeling  about  the 

forest,  1 8 

Daubigny,  his  picture  of  spring,  64 
Decay,  its  true  nature,  108 
December,  how  passed,  33 
Deschanel,  quoted,  38 
Diaz,  the  painter,  39 
Dinner,  a  game,  28 
Discoveries,  the  early,  95 
Dock,  the  sheep-sorrel,  129 
Docks,  their  color  in  August,  228 
Douglas,  Gawin,  his  hymn  of  the  birds 

to  the  sun,  139-40 
Draba  Verna,  106 
Drawing  of  plants,  40 
Dupont,  Pierre,  his  song  of  '  Les  Boeufs,' 

171 

Education,  paternal,  5  ;  public,  6 
Eglantine,  its  vermilion  fruit,  42 
Elder,  in  March,  81 ;  tree,  209 ;  berries, 

231 
Emerson,  quoted,  15;  his  feeling  about 

the  woods,  18 


Etching,  subjects  for,  10 

Etymology,  how  it  may  be  poetical,  120 

Fadette,  la  Petite,  quoted  from,  196 
Ferns,  in  January,  46 ;  then-  change  of 

color  in  September,  231 
Figwort  ranunculus,  106 
Firs,  their  resinous  cones,  20 
Fleur-de-lis,  149 
Floods  in  spring,  62 
Florian,  a  satirist  of,  197 
Flower  and  leaf,  79 
Forest,  excursion  in,  10  ;  scenery  of  its 

interior,  23 
Forget-me-not,  210 

French,  the,  their  dislike  to  solitude,  na 
Frost,  hoar,  beauty  of,  54 
Furze,  in  March,  77 

Galingale,  212 

Galium,  212 

Gentians,  on  the  Alps,  114 

Germander,  212 

Girls,  peasant,  223 

Goldfinch,  143,  213 

Gooseberry,  the  wild,  in  March,  81 

Grasses,  in  January,  46  ;  tufted  hair,  234 

Greek  language  in  idyllic  poetry,  183 

Green,  in  winter,  46-7 

Greenfinch,  143 

Harvest-time,  222 

Hawthorn,  in  March,  79 

Hazel,  in  January,  48 

Heat,  its  effects  on  landscape  color,  214  ; 

in  July,  221 
Heather,  its  change  of  color  in  August, 

228 
Helps,  Sir  Arthur,  his  description  of  a 

pine-wood,  170 
Hemlock,  the  young,  83 
Herbarium,  the  winter's,  8 
Herrick,  his  poem  on  daffodils,  83 
Hills  in  April,  102 
Hill-tops  with  many  springs,  183 
Holly,  12  ;   in  winter,  48 ;  its  time  of 

flowering,  172 
Honeysuckle,  leaves  of,  in  March,  76  ;  its 

time  of  flowering,  210-12  ;  late  flowers 

of,  234 


Index. 


241 


Hop,  wild,  its  appearance  in  September, 
231. 

Hornbeam,  its  leaves  in  January,  36  ;  its 
change  of  color  in  August,  228 ;  its 
way  of  changing  color  in  autumn,  233 

Horse,  and  water  ranunculus,  71 

Horse-chestnut,  its  leaves  in  March,  81 ; 
its  young  leaves,  117;  dislike  of  paint- 
ers to  it,  152;  objections  to,  153;  in 
May,  154;  its  name,  167 

Horse-mint,  227 

House,  the  writer's,  in  the  Val  Ste. 
Ve"ronique,  8 

House-martins,  their  nest-building,  145 

Hut,  a  forester's,  24 

Idyl,  nature  of  the,  185 

Idyllists,  their  method,  186 ;  their  cun- 
ning, 187 

Imitators  of  pastoral  poets,  their  weak- 
ness, 190 

Immorality  of  the  ancient  poets,  184 

Independence,  associated  with  ploughing, 
9i 

Iris,  the  yellow,  in  March,  76 ;  the  water, 

149 
'Ivy,  ground,  120 

January,  35  ;  an  effect  in,  38 

Jean  Cousin,  principle  of  his  glass-paint- 
ing, 119 

June,  rich  hi  flowers,  212 

Juniper,  its  change  of  color  in  August, 
228 

Keats,  his  account  of  the  origin  of  the 
Narcissus  legend,  83 ;  his  use  of  reeds 
in  poetry,  97 

Lafontaine,  his  motto  for  the  reed,  100 
Lamartine,  his  '  Laboureurs,'  195 
Lamotte,  Houdard  de,  quoted,  193 
Larch-wood,  in  early  spring,  80 
Leaf-drawing,  41 
Leaves,  dead,  law  of  their  adherence  to 

branches,  13  ;  dried,  their  beauty,  35  ; 

of  preceding  year,  118 
Le  Brun,  193 
Lichen,  43 
Lily  of  the  valley,  131,  132 


16 


Lime-tree,  213 

Locality,  instinct  of,  13 

Loire,  the  river,  in  summer,  219 

Lousewort,  166 

Lungwort,  133 

Lychnis,  red,  in  flower,  150 

Magpies,  how  they  build,  143 

Mallow,  212 

'Mariana,'  Tennyson's,  quoted,  217 

Marigold,  marsh,  121 

Meadow  bittercress,  167 

Millet,  195 

Mistletoe,  in  January,  46 

Mosses,  in  January,  46 ;  minute,  47 

Mountain-ash,  48 

Mullein,   the  great,  in  winter,  45  ;  in 

April,  120 
Musset,  Alfred  de,  his  '  Chanson  de  For- 

tunio,'  224 

Names  of  plants,  their  utility,  40,  166 

Narcissus,  the  poet's,  83  ;  legend  of,  84 

Nature,  wild,  incompleteness  of  the  mod- 
ern conception  of  it,  18 ;  coloring  of, 
42 ;  not  harmonious  in  spring,  65 ; 
her  coloring,  122 

Nest-building,  142 

Nettles,  in  April,  120 

Nightingale,  the,  his  wonderful  voice, 
198,  199;  his  emotional  expression, 
200 

November,  landscape  in,  7 

Oak,  its  leafage  in  January,  36 ;  inferior 
to  walnut,  49 ;  in  March,  81 ;  more 
leafless  hi  spring  than  in  winter,  114  ; 
its  leaves  sometimes  golden  in  May, 
130 ;  its  way  of  changing  color  in  au- 
tumn, 232 

Observation,  minute,  artistic  danger  of, 
38 

Ophelia,  her  mention  of  pansies,  164 

Osier,  in  March,  72 

Oxen,  their  use  in  ploughing,  89 

Oxslip,  in 

Painters,  their  dislike  to  distinctness  hi 

multitude,  153 
Pansies,  their  merits  and  associations,  164 


242 


Index. 


*  Parisina,'  Byron's  poem,  opening  of,  201 

Pascal,  quoted,  100 

Pastoral,  in  French  imitations,  193  ;  the 

classic,  172 

Peach-blossom  in  March,  87 
Pear-trees,  their  scarlet  color  in  autumn, 

232 

Peasant,  an  old,  94 
Pedicularis,  166 
Periwinkle,  the,  78 ;  its  Latin  and  French 

names,  ib. 

Persicaria,  flowers  late,  231 
Picture  in  Virgil,  179-80 
Pine,  cones  of,  hi  May,  169 
Planting,  50 

Ploughing  with  oxen,  89 
Ploughshare  in  Virgil,  90 
Poaching  in  France,  27 
Poets,  of  the  eighteenth  century,  60 ;  their 

love  for  spring,  63 
Polygonum,  the  amphibious,  227 
Poplar,  aspen,  in  January,  49 ;  in  April, 

116;    its  way  of   changing    color  in 

autumn,  232 
Potentilla,  133 
Primrose,  the  common,  no 
Privet,  in  March,  81 
Pulmonaria,  133 

Quince-tree,  in  January,  37 ;  in  March,  81 

Ranunculus  aquatilis,  70,  166 ;  in  May, 

128 

Rape,  a  field  of,  113 ;  in  flower,  121 
Reed,  the  common,  96 
Reeds,  in  poetry,  97 
Retirement  and  occupation,  9 
Rising  early,  124 
Roads,  ancient  Gaulish,  n 
Robinia,  211 ;  change  of  color  in  August, 

229 

Rose,  fortunate  name,  167 
Rossetti,  his  poem  of  the  wood-spurge, 

151 

Rowan-tree,  its  vermilion  berries,  229 
Rushes  in  January,  47 ;  of  preceding  year, 

120 

Saint-Lambert,  his  poem  of  the '  Seasons ' 

quoted,  141 
Sallow-willow,  72 


Sand,  George,  her  exquisite  writing  on 

rustic  subjects,  196 
Saplings  and  their  leaves,  36 
Satyr,  conception  of  the,  184 
Scabious,  its  late  flowers,  234 
Science,  barbarity  of,  165 
Shakspeare,  his  use  of  the  willow  in 

'Othello,'  74 
Shelley,  on  daisies,  126 
Shepherd,  a,  17 
Shepherdess,  a,  ib. 
Skies,  gray,  of  hot  weather,  215 
Snow,  55 

Soapwort,  in  March,  77 ;  in  August,  226 
Socrates,  his  death,  86 
Sow,  a  wild,  21 
Sowing  of  two  kinds,  93 
Spenser,  his  conception  of  the  forest,  52 
Spindle-tree,  79 
Spring,  its  sudden  arrival,  61 ;  more  the 

season  of  poets  than  of  painters,  63 ; 

the  feeling,  64 

Spurge,  its  flower  and  leaf,  150 
Starwort,  127 
Stellaria,  ib. 
Streams  in  spring,  103 
Summer,  the  landscape-painter's  time  of" 

harmony,   66 ;  a  wonderful,   68 ;  the 

thirst  for,  69 

Summers,  fine,  their  monotony,  215 
Sunshine,  oppression  of,  216;  English, 

219 
Swallow,  associated  with  the  celandine, 

no 

Swallows,  their  nest-building,  145 
Sycamore-maple,  in  flower,  171 
Sylvan  life,  permanence  of  its  interests, 

181 

Tasso,  his  '  Aminta,'  190 ;  his  way  of 
sketching,  192 

Teazle,  hi  winter,  44 

Tennyson,  his  use  of  the  willow  in  the 
*  Lady  of  Shalott, '  74  ;  his  use  of  reeds 
in  poetry,  98 

Theocritus,  landscape  studies  in  his 
Idyls,  183 ;  compared  with  Virgil, 
187 ;  his  personal  experience  of  Na- 
ture, 1 88 ;  his  seventh  Idyl  quoted, 
188-9 


Index. 


243 


Thistle,  212,  213  ;  in  September,  230 
Thomson,  his  poetry,  60 ;  on  ploughing, 

9i 

Thrush,  as  a  nest-builder,  143 

Thunderstorms,  221 

Thyme,  wild,  its  fragrance,  212 

Tomtit,  142-3 

Trees,  venerable,  how  important  in  sce- 
nery, 51 ;  prejudices  against,  158 

Troyon,  195 

Trunks  and  branches  in  winter,  48 

Vegetation,  change  of,  in  autumn,  232 

Veronique,  le  Val  Ste.,  i 

Viburnum,  in  January,  48 

Virgil,  his  use  of  the  willow,  75 ;  how 
he  mentions  trees  particularly,  1 76 ; 
his  preference  of  olive  to  willow,  177 ; 
his  affectionate  comparison  of  species 
amongst  trees,  1 78 ;  how  far  he  may 
be  compared  to  a  modern  painter,  179 

Virgil  and  Chaucer,  173 

Virgil  and  Theocritus  compared,  187 

Walnut,  bark  of,  49 ;  in  March,  81 ;  in 

May,  156 
Walls,  old,  87 


Weasel,  the,  30,  56,  236 

Wheat,  224 

Wheatfield,  in  April,  113 

White,  Gilbert,  134 

Whitethorn,  its  wintry  coloring,  46 

Wilderness,  the  old  dread  of,  19 

Willow,  varieties  of,  71 ;  round-eared,  in 
blossom,  72  ;  associated  with  unhappi- 
ness,  73  ;  Latin  for,  75  ;  French  for, 
ib. ;  Italian  for,  ib. ;  the  time  of  his 
glory,  102 ;  in  May,  155 ;  beauty  of  it 
when  unmaimed,  160;  keeps  green 
late,  233 

Wine,  elder-flower,  209 

Winter,  colors  in,  42 ;  mild,  53 ;  com- 
parative rigors  of,  57;  the  perfect,  58 

Winter  scenery,  beauties  of,  15  ;  color  of, 

35 

Wolves  and  boars,  34 
Woods,  their  color  in  January,  43 
Wordsworth,  his  poem  on  the  daffodil, 

82  ;  his  poem  on  the  lesser  celandine, 

108 
Wrens,  their  nests,  144 

Year,  limits  of  a,  66;  sylvan,  close  ofj 
235 


THE 


UNKNOWN    RIVER. 


etcfcet's;  fflopge  of  £> 


BY 


PHILIP    GILBERT    HAMERTON, 

AUTHOR  OF  "THOUGHTS  ABOUT  ART,"  "CHAPTERS  ON  ANIMALS,"  "ROUND  MY 
HOUSE,"   "A  PAINTER'S  CAMP,"   ETC. 


TOM. 


BOSTON: 

ROBERTS      BROTHERS. 
1882. 


PUBLISHERS'   NOTE. 


IN  reproducing  an  edition  of  "  The  Unknown 
River"  without  the  illustrations,  the  publishers 
have  not  thought  it  important  to  make  any 
changes  in  the  text.  To  the  general  reader  their 
absence  will  not  lessen  the  charm  of  the  narrative, 
and  those  who  prefer  the  more  expensive  edition 
with  the  etchings  can  gratify  their  tastes. 


TO 


THE   REV.  HORATIO   N.  POWERS,  D.D., 

ONE   OF   THE   MOST   VALUED   OF   MANY   KIND  FRIENDS 
IN   AMERICA, 

I    DEDICATE    THIS    VOLUME. 


PREFACE 

TO    THE    AMERICAN    EDITION. 


TN  the  revival  of  the  too  long  neglected  art  of 
•*•  etching,  we  who  in  England  and  France  have 
tried  to  recover  the  right  use  of  the  needle  have 
had  to  contend  against  many  difficulties ;  and  little 
of  what  we  have  hitherto  done  can  be  considered 
more  than  tentative  and  experimental.  Etching, 
however,  has  this  advantage  over  line-engraving,  — 
that  the  comparatively  rapid  and  spontaneous 
nature  of  the  process,  and  its  purely  artistic  and 
intellectual  aims,  obtain  indulgence  for  many  im- 
perfections which  would  not  be  tolerated  in  a  craft 
professing  great  mechanical  finish.  In  etching,  the 
spirit  of  the  work  is  of  more  consequence  than 
manual  accuracy;  and  I  have  therefore  allowed 
several  plates  to  be  published  in  this  series,  in 
which  the  manual  work  is  rude,  because  they 
expressed  my  meaning,  though  in  a  rough  way. 


252         Preface  to  the  American  Edition. 

Nearly  all  the  plates  in  this  series  —  indeed,  the 
whole  of  the  landscape  subjects  —  were  etched 
directly  from  Nature,  often  under  circumstances 
very  different  from  the  convenient  surroundings 
of  an  engraver's  table  at  home,  with  rain  pouring 
over  the  plate,  or  daylight  rapidly  declining,  joined 
to  serious  apprehensions  about  passing  some  dan- 
gerous rapid  before  I  could  get  to  a  village  inn,  or 
find  shelter  beneath  the  thatch  of  some  humble 
hamlet  nestled  in  a  nook  of  the  wooded  and  rocky 
shore.  Hence  they  are  literally  no  more  than  the 
notes  of  impressions  which  an  artist  takes  in  his 
memorandum-book.  As  for  the  two  or  three  sub- 
jects in  which  the  author  himself  appears,  it  may 
be  remarked,  that,  as  he  could  not  pose  and  draw 
at  the  same  time,  there  was  a  peculiar  difficulty  in 
these  attempts,  which  the  author,  from  want  of 
practice  in  figure-drawing,  could  scarcely  be  ex- 
pected to  overcome.  A  friend  of  mine,  who  is  a 
figure-painter  by  profession,  kindly  made  one  or 
two  slight  sketches  as  helps ;  but,  as  the  artist  in 
question  belonged  to  the  severest  French  classi- 
cal school  (with  which,  as  an  artist,  I  have  no 
affinity  whatever,  though  as  a  critic  I  admire  much 
of  what  it  has  accomplished),  his  sketches  were 


Preface  to  the  American  Edition.         253 

conceived  in  a  temper  so  opposed  to  mine  that 
they  turned  out  to  be  of  no  use  for  this  particular 
purpose.  Dog  Tom  was  introduced  at  the  urgent 
request  of  an  unknown  correspondent  whose  love 
of  dogs  touched  the  author  in  a  tender  place,  and 
made  him,  somewhat  rashly,  turn  animal-designer 
for  the  occasion.  American  critics  are  therefore 
requested  to  remember  that  the  figures  and  dog 
are  thrown  in,  as  it  were,  simply  for  the  reader's 
amusement,  and  not  with  any  ambitious  artistic 
pretensions. 

However,  such  as  they  are,  it  has  been  the  good 
fortune  of  these  little  plates  to  please  many  people 
in  Europe,  and  amongst  them  a  few  more  than 
ordinarily  fastidious  and  capable  judges.  This 
may  be  attributed  to  the  fact  that  in  etching  them 
the  artist  worked  without  the  least  reference  to 
criticism  of  any  kind,  in  the  simple  enjoyment  of 
one  of  the  pleasantest  artistic  expeditions  imagi- 
nable. Indeed,  although  working  very  hard  the 
whole  time,  I  was  under  the  delusion  —  it  may  be 
strictly  said,  labored  under  the  delusion  —  that  the 
voyage  was  a  perfect  holiday,  a  belief  that  was 
greatly  encouraged  by  an  absolute  indecision  as  to 
which  plates  should  be  published  and  which  de- 


254         Preface  to  the  American  Edition. 

stroyed.  Another  piece  of  luck  was,  that  I  had 
no  time,  nor  acid,  to  bite  the  plates  there  and  then, 
and  so  innocently  fancied  that  they  were  all  very 
pretty  (an  etching  done  according  to  the  old  nega- 
tive process  always  looks  pretty  when  it  is  first 
drawn,  because  the  lines  glitter  charmingly  on  the 
black  ground),  and  felt  agreeably  encouraged,  the 
evil  hour  of  disappointment  being  put  off  until  my 
return  to  home  and  the  printing-press,  which  told 
the  painful  truth  with  a  frankness  equal  to  that 
of  the  most  unpleasantly  honest  dilettante  in 
England. 

It  may  interest  readers  who  share  the  author's 
boating  propensities  to  know  that  the  voyage  was 
undertaken  in  a  canoe  fabricated  by  his  own  hands 
of  paper,  on  a  light  skeleton  of  laths.  The  whole 
of  the  voyage  was  accomplished  in  this  fragile 
craft ;  but  it  is  only  honest  to  add  that  she  became 
leaky  before  it  was  over,  and  was  condemned  as 
unriverworthy  at  the  end.  Not  that  I  think,  even 
now,  that  paper  is  a  bad  material  for  canoes,  but  I 
had  not  then  (1866)  hit  upon  the  right  material 
for  gluing  it.  I  employed  the  enduit  Ruolz,  which 
takes  about  twelve  months  to  harden,  and  I  had 
not  patience  to  wait  the  twelve  months ;  so  the 


Preface  to  the  American  Edition.         255 

sheets  or  bands  of  paper  did  not  really  adhere,  and 
the  water  oozed  between  them  after  a  while.  The 
proper  gum  to  use  for  fastening  paper  so  as  to 
resist  water  is  simply  a  strong  solution  of  shell-lac 
in  spirits  of  wine.  I  have  a  canoe  at  present  and 
two  small  punts  which  are  made  of  thin  wood, 
lined  with  paper,  applied  with  shell-lac.  When  a 
leak  shows  itself,  it  is  stopped  at  once  with  a  bit 
of  paper  and  a  touch  of  the  solution,  which  dries 
immediately.  An  English  oarsman  tells  me  that 
for  the  last  two  years  he  has  used  bits  of  calico 
with  the  same  solution  in  an  old  wooden  canoe, 
which  remains  serviceable,  thanks  to  the  shell-lac. 
One  result  of  the  voyage  narrated  in  this  volume 
was  the  invention  of  a  machine  which  is  a  punt  by 
day  on  the  water,  and  a  hut  by  night  on  shore, 
large  enough  to  stretch  a  hammock  in.  The 
American  reader  will  no  doubt  pardon  an  allusion 
to  these  fancies,  and  believe  them  compatible  with 
serious  work  in  other  ways.  If  it  is  boyish  to  like 
boating,  in  all  its  forms  (as  some  grave  and  wise 
men  seem  to  imagine),  I  hope  to  remain  puerile 
yet  a  little  longer.  The  cold  sapience  of  age 
comes  on  rapidly  enough  to  all  of  us;  and  it  is 
not  a  misfortune  to  be  able  still  to  feel  an  irra- 


256         Preface  to  the  American  Edition. 

tional  delight  in  a  canoe  when  she  glides  in  safety, 
and  an  imprudent  indifference  when  she  upsets. 

The  verses  at  the  beginning  of  this  book  were 
written  during  the  late  war,  in  anticipation  of  an 
attack  from  the  Germans,  which  took  place  shortly 
afterwards ;  and  I  witnessed  the  combat  for  many 
hours  on  the  banks  of  the  river,  between  Garibaldi, 
who  defended  Autun,  and  a  strong  body  of  Bavari- 
ans who  attacked  it,  —  not  exactly  the  moment  for 
descending  the  river  in  a  paper  canoe !  Another 
chapter  was  added  that  day  to  the  long  history  of 
that  ancient  city  by  the  Arroux ;  and  as  I  watched 
the  flight  of  the  shells  in  the  clear  December  air, 
and  saw,  beneath  the  moon,  the  fiery  tongues  dart- 
ing from  the  mouths  of  the  enemy's  guns,  I  thought 
of  many  a  former  siege  in  times  when  war  was  less 
noisy  and  less  bloody,  but  more  cruelly  protracted. 
How  little  I  imagined,  when  writing  the  chapter 
about  Augustodunum  in  this  book,  that  I  should 
see  an  army  in  battle-array  drawn  up  against  it,  — 
a  dark,  thick  line  of  Germans,  with  cannon  glitter- 
ing at  intervals !  Yet  once  again  the  Roman  wall 
rang  in  echoes  to  the  ivar-trumpet,  and  once  again 
the  river  was  stained  with  blood ! 


The  wild  rain  drives  in  gusty  showers. 
And  past  the  moon  the  storm-clouds  fly. 
The  river,  rising,  hurries  by 

The  gray  '  old city  of  fair  towers? 

The  bayonets  gleam  in  all  her  streets  : 
AH  hearts  are  anxious,  homes  are  sad— 
Oh,  when  shall  victory  make  them  glad, 

And  light  the  faces  that  one  meets  f 

O  River!  once  so  fair  and  clear, 
Now  dark  as  death  thy  currents  flow; 
They  may  be  reddened — who  can  know?- 

Before  the  closing  of  the  year. 

O  River  !  made  for  my  delight, 
I  see  upon  thy  wintry  flood 
A  floating  corpse  —  a  streak  of  blood, 

And  flames  reflected  in  the  night. 

October,  1870. 

17 


THE  UNKNOWN  RIVER. 


CHAPTER    I. 

ON  a  bright  afternoon  in  autumn  I  lay  on  the  green 
bank  of  a  little  stream.  The  stream  was  so  little 
that  my  dog  Tom  cleared  it  at  one  bound,  as  in  the  eager 
excitement  of  a  wildly  impossible  chase  he  rushed  after 
flying  game.  Of  course  he  never  yet  caught  a  bird  on 
the  wing,  but  his  faith  in  the  practicability  of  such  an 
achievement  does  not  seem  to  be  in  the  least  shaken  by 
the  discouraging  lessons  of  a  constantly  recurring  expe- 
rience. Only  a  peregrine  falcon,  strong-winged,  sharp- 
taloned,  could  follow  and  slay  those  partridges  ;  but  Tom 
dashes  after  them  through  and  over  all  manner  of  obsta- 
cles, hoping,  by  perseverance,  to  attain  his  object,  like 
the  man  who  ran  after  the  express  train. 

Tom  is  a  dog  of  immense  energy  when  out  of  doors, 
and  the  most  listless  indolence  at  home.  He  will  run  a 
hundred  miles  in  a  day,  or  swim  fifteen,  but  he  will  not 
walk  across  the  room  without  the  most  elaborate  prepa- 
ration in  the  way  of  stretchings  which  he  believes  to  be 
necessary  ;  and  when  the  little  distance  is  at  last  accom- 
plished  he  falls  down  with  a  grunt  as  if  extenuated  by 


260  The  Unknown  River. 

fatigue.  Another  peculiarity  of  his  is  the  wonderful 
difference  in  the  state  of  his  affections,  for  when  in  the 
open  air  he  is  in  the  highest  degree  grateful  for  the  least 
word  or  gesture  of  his  master,  and  very  demonstrative 
himself ;  whereas  in  the  studio,  where  he  passes  too 
many  tedious  hours,  he  has  scarcely  ever  been  known 
to  acknowledge  a  caress  even  by  one  movement  of  his 
tail.  He  is  by  race  a  setter,  and  seemed  destined  to 
a  sporting  career,  but,  as  his  master's  fowling-piece  has 
not  been  used  for  some  years,  Tom's  instincts  are  quite 
undisciplined;  and  though  in  outward  appearance  the 
finest  setter  in  the  whole  neighborhood,  so  that  all 
sportsmen  stop  and  look  at  him  when  he  passes  by,  he 
is  a  lamentable  instance  of  the  consequences  of  a  neg- 
lected education,  and  almost  any  dog  of  the  same  breed 
is  professionally  his  superior,  if  only  he  has  passed 
through  a  proper  course  of  discipline. 

We  digressed  into  this  talk  about  Tom  after  saying 
that  he  jumped  over  a  brook.  The  brook  murmurs  over 
the  pebbles  about  a  hundred  yards  lower  down,  and 
we  hear  the  refreshing  sound  coming  on  the  faint,  cool 
breeze ;  but  the  brook  is  very  calm  and  quiet  just  here, 
and  washes  its  sandy  banks  with  silent  regularity,  taking 
the  earth  away  grain  by  grain,  an  unceasing  agent  of 
waste,  and  author  of  endless  change. 

There  is  no  rest  to  faculties  wearied  by  labor  like  rest 
by  a  quiet  stream,  on  a  beautiful  afternoon  in  summer. 
If  you  distribute  your  work  wisely,  and  are  fortunate 
enough  to  have  work  of  a  kind  that  may  be  done  at  your 
own  hours,  you  will  take  care,  when  the  days  are  long, 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.        261 

to  reserve  some  considerable  part  of  the  afternoon  as 
sacred  to  utter  idleness,  and,  if  a  quiet  stream  is  within 
an  easy  distance,  there  you  will  go  and  rest.  Most  men 
under  such  circumstances  take  a  rod  and  fish,  but  it  does 
not  always  happen  that  there  is  any  thing  which  the  dig- 
nity of  manhood  may  avow  an  interest  in  catching.  The 
man  who  rents  a  salmon  river  in  Scotland,  or  even  the 
Englishman  whose  trout  stream  is  well  preserved,  may 
go  forth  with  the  implements  of  the  angler  and  a  con- 
sciousness of  noble  aims.  But  can  anybody  past  boy- 
hood pretend  to  take  an  interest  in  catching  minnows, 
unless,  indeed,  he  be  a  Frenchman  who  has  just  landed  a 
goujon,  and  is  vain  of  the  exploit  ? 

It  is  curious  how  capable  we  all  are  of  seeing  people 
and  things  every  day  of  our  lives  without  being  once 
prompted  to  ascertain  any  thing  further  about  them, — 
whence  they  come,  whither  they  go,  what  their  past  has 
been,  or  what  may  be  reserved  for  them  in  the  future. 
The  inhabitants  of  great  cities,  being  satiated  by  the  con- 
tinual sight  of  innumerable  persons  and  things,  have  this 
indifference  in  the  most  strongly  developed  form,  but  it 
may  be  observed  in  the  country  with  regard  to  what  is 
most  commonly  seen  there.  For  instance,  brooks  and 
streams  are  very  commonly  met  with  in  all  northern 
countries,  and  therefore  very  few  people  ever  give  a 
thought  to  the  geography  of  them,  or  have  any  thing 
beyond  a  very  vague  and  general  notion  of  their  course. 
The  inhabitants  of  the  region  through  which  the  stream 
passes  usually  know  it  at  bridges  and  fords,  and  farmers 
know  it  where  it  eats  away  the  land,  and  where,  in  times 


262  The  Unknown  River. 

of  flood,  it  is  most  likely  to  leave  a  deposit  of  sand  and 
pebbles  ;  the  angler,  too,  may  have  followed  it  for  a  few 
miles,  and  some  professional  landscape-painter  or  ama- 
teur may  have  explored  a  few  of  its  most  picturesque 
parts.  But  no  man  living  knows  the  whole  stream,  and 
so  there  is  always  a  great  mystery  about  it ;  and  any  one 
who  cares  to  follow  its  course  faithfully  may  enjoy  all 
the  keen  delights,  and  feel  all  the  unceasing  interest, 
which  belong  to  a  true  exploration. 

In  this  especial  sense  our  little  river  is  yideed  un- 
known, and  as  I  lay  idly  on  its  bank  on  that  bright 
autumn  afternoon,  it  occurred  to  me  clearly  for  the  first 
time  that  the  river  came  from  far,  and  went  yet  farther  ; 
that  it  was  not  confined  to  the  fields  about  my  house, 
and  that  this  little  scene  was  not  a  solitary  gem,  but 
one  only  of  a  thousand  links  in  a  long  chain  of  various 
and  unimagined  beauty. 

Why  had  not  this  been  equally  clear  to  me  years  be- 
fore ?  Why  do  we  dream  ever  in  one  place,  or  travel  by 
the  same  weary  old  roads,  when  infinite  beauty  and  nov- 
elty are  open  to  us  ?  It  is  because  the  beauty  and  the 
novelty  are  so  very  near  to  us  that  we  miss  them,  and 
often  so  cheap  that  our  pitiful  small  dignity  despises 
them  as  something  puerile.  When  we  are  weary  of  the 
monotony  of  life,  and  the  whole  human  organism  longs 
for  the  refreshment  of  change,  we  would  go  to  the  end 
of  the  earth,  and,  in  order  to  defeat  our  purposes  as 
completely  as  possible,  carry  our  habits  with  us.  We  are 
accustomed  to  railways  and  newspapers,  to  bitter  ale  and 
sweet  tea ;  and  we  seek  these  things,  and  a  thousand  others 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.        263 

that  habit  has  rendered  necessary,  wherever  on  earth  we 
go.  And  yet  change  more  refreshing  and  novelty  more 
complete  are  here  within  one  day  of  slowest  travel,  than 
in  journeys  to  Berlin  and  Vienna ;  for  the  truest  change 
and  best  novelty  are  not  in  length  of  travel,  but  in  the 
abandonment  of  habit,  and  especially  in  the  zest  of  free 
and  personal  discovery. 

There  is  an  unfortunate  belief  that  this  glorious  pleasure 
and  passion  of  the  discoverer  are  not  now  to  be  enjoyed 
in  Europe.  It  is  supposed  that  since  every  State  in  that 
region  has  been  explored  by  many  travellers,  and  even 
more  or  less  accurately  surveyed  by  the  makers  of  maps, 
there  is  nothing  new  to  be  found  there.  The  reason  for 
this  appears  to  be  a  confusion  between  the  genuine 
pleasures  of  the  discoverer  and  the  satisfaction  of  his 
pride.  Of  course  there  can  be  nothing  to  boast  of  in 
discoveries  such  as  those  here  narrated,  but  there  is 
much  to  be  enjoyed.  The  explorer  of  a  nameless  Eu- 
ropean river  need  not  hope  to  be  remembered  like  Liv- 
ingstone or  Speke,  but  he  may  set  forth  in  the  full 
assurance  of  finding  much  that  is  worth  finding,  and  of 
enjoying  many  of  the  sensations,  deducting  those  con- 
nected with  personal  vanity,  which  give  interest  to  more 
famous  explorations.  It  is  necessary,  however,  to  the 
complete  enjoyment  of  an  excursion  of  discovery,  that 
the  region  to  be  explored,  whether  mountain  or  river,  or 
whatever  else  it  may  be,  should  not  have  been  already 
explored  by  others,  or  at  any  rate  not  with  the  same 
objects  and  intentions.  A  geologist  has  a  certain  sat- 
isfaction in  marching,  hammer  in  hand,  over  a  tract  of 


264  The  Unknown  River. 

country  not  yet  conquered  for  geology ;  and  an  artist 
likes  to  sketch  in  secluded  valleys  where  it  is  not  proba- 
ble that  any  artist  has  been  before.  On  the  same  prin- 
ciple a  traveller  who  is  fond  of  boating  has  an  especial 
pleasure  in  descending  some  stream  of  which  it  may  be 
safely  presumed  that  nobody  ever  descended  it  in  a  boat. 
In  this  especial  sense  there  is  much  yet  to  be  done 
in  the  way  of  exploration,  even  in  the  most  known 
countries. 

No  sooner  had  these  ideas  formed  themselves  in  the 
writer's  mind,  than  the  little  stream  by  which  he  was 
lazily  reclining  acquired  a  new  importance  ;  and  the  low 
music  of  its  shallows,  instead  of  being,  as  formerly,  the 
lullaby  of  Mother  Nature,  became  an  awakening  call 
to  action,  and  a  promise  of  joyful  change.  A  thousand 
scenes  rose  rapidly  before  his  mind,  and  the  pipe  which 
had  languidly  yielded  half  an  hour  before  the  tiniest 
puffs  of  smoke  to  the  fragrant  air  now  gave  dense 
clouds,  in  which  the  smoker  saw  endless  visions.  He 
saw  the  deep,  calm  pools  under  the  richj  overhanging 
foliage  where  the  currents  fall  asleep  together,  like  tired 
children  that  have  filled  the  fields  with  their  merry  noise, 
till  weariness  fell  on  their  swift  limbs,  and  hushed  their 
happy  voices,  and  laid  them  in  silent  sleep  under  the 
soft  green  leaves.  He  saw  the  ra'pids  dashing  into  white 
foam  amongst  the  rocks,  and  the  kingfisher  glancing 
above  them  like  a  sapphire-flash  in  the  sun.  He  saw 
the  picturesque  farms  and  cottages  by  the  unfrequented 
shore,  the  gray,  deserted  castles,  the  antique  cities,  — 
the  remains  of  a  thousand  years.  And  then  came  the 


An  Etcher^s  Voyage  of  Discovery.        265 

majesty  of  the  effects  of  Nature,  the  splendor  of  the  sun- 
set and  the  promise  of  the  dawn,  the  mysterious  poetry 
of  summer  twilight,  and  the  long  hours  alone  beneath 
the  moon. 

By  this  time  it  became  impossible  to  remain  quiet  in 
that  place  any  longer.  Tom  was  called  back  from  his 
vagrant  courses  and  taken  into  his  master's  confidence. 
Tom  listened  with  the  utmost  attention  whilst  the  novel 
project  was  explained  to  him,  and,  although  he  may  not 
have  clearly  understood  its  details,  he  perceived  at  least 
that  action  of  some  kind  was  meditated,  and  eagerly 
expressed  his  willingness  to  take  a  share  in  it. 


266  The  Unknown  River. 


CHAPTER    II. 

DURING  the  last  few  years  the  noble  old  art  of  etch- 
ing has  been  revived  by  many  painters.  Some 
of  my  friends  have  practised  it  with  distinguished  suc- 
cess, and  their  example  led  me  to  recur  to  an  art  which  I 
had  first  attempted  in  boyhood,  and  then  neglected  for 
many  years.  Of  the  means  at  my  disposal  for  the  illus- 
tration of  the  projected  voyage  none  seemed  better  than 
etching,  as  it  is  the  only  kind  of  engraving  which  can  be 
done  directly  from  Nature,  and  the  only  engraving,  too, 
which  has  enough  of  the  spirit  of  liberty  to  harmonize 
with  such  a  state  of  mind  as  that  of  a  wandering  canoist. 
It  accepts  laborious  finish  when  the  artist  has  time  for 
it,  but  it  also  allows  of  rapid  sketching  when  he  is  in  a 
hurry.  So  it  was  decided  that  the  voyage  should  be 
written,  and  that  the  illustrations  should  be  etched  from 
Nature  on  the  way. 

All  the  plates  being  prepared  at  home  in  my  own 
etching-room  (nearly  sixty  of  them),  I  laid  them  on 
small  drawing-boards,  four  to  each  board,  and,  by  means 
of  two  very  small  screws  to  each  plate,  fixed  them  to  the 
board  so  as  to  resist  any  jolting  that  they  might  be  ex- 
posed to.  There  was  no  necessity  to  pierce  the  plates 
with  holes  to  receive  the  screws,  since,  by  placing  the 
screws  near  the  edge  of  the  copper,  the  screw-heads 
held  the  plates  firmly  enough.  I  had  previously  tried 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.         267 

many  experiments  for  the  carriage  of  plates,  but  none 
succeeded  so  well  as  this.  If  the  coppers  had  been  all 
of  precisely  the  same  dimensions,  they  might  have  been 
carried  in  a  grooved  box,  such  as  photographers  use  for 
their  glasses  ;  and  this,  no  doubt,  would  have  been  a 
considerable  economy  of  space,  and  would,  at  the  same 
time,  have  saved  the  weight  of  all  drawing-boards  except 
one.* 

Having  screwed  my  sixty  plates  to  a  quantity  of  small 
drawing-boards,  I  slipped  these  boards  into  several 
grooved  boxes  ;  each  box  provided  with  a  lock  and  key. 
I  then  calculated  the  probable  length  of  the  voyage,  and, 
having  locked  my  boxes,  sent  them  to  inns  at  different 
distances  down  the  river,  to  await  my  arrival.  Thus  I 
was  never  obliged  to  carry  more  than  one  box  of  plates 
at  a  time.  It  is  unnecessary  to  go  into  the  detail  of  my 
other  preparations,  which  were  of  the  kind  now  so  well 
known  to  canoe-men,  and  to  all  who  take  an  interest  in 
canoe-travelling. 

Here  is  the  little  village  from  which  the  expedition 
started.  The  canoe  had  been  transported  thither  in  a 
cart,  and  as  we  arrived  in  the  evening  it  was  not  con- 
sidered advisable  to  begin  the  voyage  till  the  following 
day.  So  I  dined  at  the  little  inn,  and  after  dinner  went 
out  to  walk  in  the  village  by  the  shore  of  the  narrow 
rivulet  I  was  to  embark  upon  on  the  morrow. 

It  was  a  clear,  bright  moonlight  night  (the  etching,  it 

*  It  is  necessary,  however,  when  plates  are  carried  in  a  grooved  box, 
without  being  fixed  to  a  drawing-board,  to  revarnish  their  edges  before 
biting. 


268  The  Unknown  River. 

may  be  well  to  observe,  is  intended  to  represent  a  moon- 
light), and  I  wandered  first  about  the  river,  and  then  in 
a  small  valley  between  precipitous  little  hills.  I  was  in 
the  heart  of  the  MorvanJ  a  highland  district  in  the  east 
of  France,  almost  unknown  to  tourists.  The  river  to  be 
explored  was  the  Arroux,  that  passes  by  the  antique 
Augustodunum,  and  flows  to  the  historic  Loire.  No- 
body had  explored  it  yet,  and  all  the  hazards  of  the 
enterprise  rose  before  me  as  I  leaned  over  the  low  para- 
pet of  the  one-arched  bridge  at  Voudenay. 

The  stream  flowed  under  the  bridge,  after  a  curve  like 
a  snake  in  the  grass,  a  silvery  snake  glittering  under  the 
moon.  It  came  from  a  rustic  mill,  and  the  monotonous 
noise  of  the  mill-wheel  was  the  only  audible  sound,  ex- 
cept the  wash  of  the  swift  current  on  its  pebbly  margin. 
Beyond  the  bridge  the  stream  looked  dark  and  treacher- 
ous (for  the  moon  was  behind  me  then),  and  it  went  and 
buried  itself  in  a  black  wood.  This  was  all  that  could 
be  seen  of  it  from  Voudenay.  It  was  very  narrow,  and 
wilful  and  swift,  and  it  hurried  away  into  the  black 
wood  as  if  it  had  some  deadly  unavowable  work  to  do 
there,  somebody  to  stifle  and  drown  in  the  awful  shade 
of  the  forest. 

What  would  this  adventure  bring  me  to  ?  No  man 
knew  the  river,  no  man  had  ever  known  it.  Its  course 
was  full  of  dangers.  A  thousand  strong  boughs  were 
waiting  for  me,  stretching  their  gnarled  and  knotty  arms 
across  the  stream.  There  were  festoons  of  briers  and 
thorns,  there  were  deep  black  pools  hidden  under  the 
intricate  branches,-  there  were  roots  in  the  river,  and 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.         269 

lower  down  I  had  to  expect  sharp  rocks  also.  But  could 
I  not  swim  ?  Yes,  in  water,  but  not  amongst  stones  and 
snags.  Better  the  angry  waves  of  the  ocean,  than  these 
treacherous,  suffocating  snares  ! 

There  was  just  so  much  of  apprehension  as  sufficed 
to  give  interest  to  the  adventure.  It  amounted  to  a  cer- 
tainty that  I  should  be  upset  (probably  more  than  once), 
and  have  to  struggle  for  dear  life,  but  it  was  not  so 
certain  that  I  should  struggle  for  it  unsuccessfully.  I 
returned  to  the  little  inn,  and  had  a  long  talk  with  a  set 
of  peasants,  and  then  went  to  bed  in  a  room  that  looked 
out  upon  the  river,  the  moonlight  falling  on  the  counter- 
pane. The  night  was  exquisitely  calm,  the  peasants  left 
the  inn,  and  all  the  house  was  still. 

I  have  accustomed  myself  to  do  with  what  suffices  for 
the  peasantry,  and  can  therefore  lodge  in  the  poorest 
country  inn  or  cottage  without  any  painful  sense  of  pri- 
vation. This  is  a  valuable  accomplishment  for  an  ex- 
plorer of  unknown  rivers,  who  may  have  to  lodge  very 
simply  from  time  to  time.  Thus,  my  first  night  I  slept 
in  the  same  room  with  a  farmer's  boy,  my  second  with  a 
wheelwright,  and  my  third  with  the  family  of  a  poor 
miller ;  but  I  always  had  a  bed  to  myself  and  clean 
sheets  (though  coarse).  A  sleepy  traveller  needs  no 
more.* 

We  are  afloat  at  last  on  the  little  river,  which  loses  its 
terrors  in  broad  daylight.  I  am  in  the  paper  canoe,  and 
Tom  is  swimming  behind.  If  that  is  the  way  he  intends 

*  I  much  prefer  the  independence  of  a  tent,  but  in  this  voyage  it  did 
not  seem  practicable  to  carry  a  tent  and  provisions. 


270  TJie  Unknown  River. 

to  fpllow  me  during  the  whole  voyage  he  will  incur  much 
useless  fatigue.  Why  does  not  Tom  simply  run  along 
the  bank  ?  he  would  go  twice  as  fast,  with  a  tenth  of  the 
fatigue.  I  stop  the  carioe  and  reason  with  poor  Tom.  I 
explain  all  this  to  him  both  verbally  and  by  signs,  but 
his  only  answer  is  to  look  at  me  imploringly,  and  lift  up 
his  wet  old  nose,  and  splash  with  his  fore-paws,  and  put 
one  of  them  timidly  on  the  edge  of  the  canoe.  I  remove 
the  paw,  and  use  one  word  of  menace:  the  sensitive 
creature  takes  an  expression  of  extreme  sadness  ;  I  have 
wounded  his  feelings.  I  speak  more  kindly,  and  explain 
that  the  only  objection  is  to  his  bigness  ;  that  he  is  dearly 
beloved,  but  unhappily  too  big ;  and  that  the  canoe  can 
never  carry  both  of  us.  The  kind  tones  encourage  him 
again ;  this  time  he  puts  both  paws  on  the  canoe,  and  is 
within  a  hairbreadth  of  upsetting  her.  My  only  chance 
of  getting  the  great,  heavy,  clinging  paws  off  is  to  hit 
their  owner  a  smart  rap  on  the  nose  with  the  paddle. 

The  narrow  stream  winds  rapidly  between  banks  of 
gravel,  and  four  little  boys  are  running  along  the  shore, 
keeping  pace  with  the  swift  canoe.  Poor  Tom  cannot 
swim  quite  so  fast,  and  has  been  left  behind  for  several 
turns  of  the  river,  but  now  he  comes  galloping  like  a 
racehorse  across  the  fields.  Nothing  could  be  easier 
and  more  agreeable  than  the  voyage  has  hitherto  been, 
but  the  stream,  already  very  rapid,  runs  faster  and  faster, 
and  is  evidently  carrying  me  into  a  dense  grove  of  trees, 
which  will  probably  be  long,  and  which  may  offer  very 
serious  difficulties.  The  worst  of  these  very  narrow 
rivers  is  that  there  is  not  room  to  use  the  paddle,  and 


An  Et  cherts  Voyage  of  Discovery.        271 

you  are  carried  along  by  the  impetuous  current  with  a 
very  slight  chance  either  of  stopping  yourself,  if  rush- 
ing upon  obvious  peril,  or  of  defending  yourself  against 
the  branches. 

Here  we  are  amongst  the  willows,  carried  rapidly 
down  a  little  sylvan  tunnel,  three  or  four  feet  wide  and 
about  a  yard  high.  It  is  wonderfully  beautiful,  if  one 
had  only  the  time  to  appreciate  its  beauty ;  but  the  cur- 
rent is  so  strong  and  impetuous,  and  the  turns  are  so 
numerous,  that  there  is  hardly  time  to  think  of  any  thing 
but  the  management  of  the  canoe.  The  little  boys  are 
behind  somewhere  ;  I  hear  their  loud  chatter  in  the  dis- 
tance, and  a  yelping  bark  from  Tom  informs  me  that 
he  is  yet  alive,  though  I  know  not  whether  in  water  or 
on  land. 

The  first  insurmountable  obstacle  is  a  young  tree, 
lying  quite  across  the  stream.  It  has  not  been  cut  down, 
but  the  water  has  eaten  away  the  earth  about  its  roots, 
and  it  has  fallen  across  the  current.  If  the  place  had 
been  a  little  more  open  I  might  have  hauled  the  canoe 
on  shore  and  launched  her  a  little  lower  down,  but  here 
the  dense  underwood  makes  that  manoeuvre  impossible. 
Here  come  the  little  boys !  I  have  a  long  and  strong  cord 
in  the  canoe  ;  I  tie  a  stone  to  one  end  of  it,  and  throw  it 
over  a  branch  to  a  boy  on  the  other  side,  telling  him  to 
tie  it  to  the  top  of  the  fallen  tree.  Then,  with  the  branch 
for  a  fulcrum,  I  and  the  little  boys  on  my  side  pull  very 
hard,  and  gradually  the  little  tree  rises  and  rises  till  the 
course  is  clear.  After  overcoming  other  difficulties  with 
the  help  of  the  little  boys,  who  were  exceedingly  useful, 


272  The  Unknown  River. 

I  came  to  a  place  where  the  river  was  less  impetuous, 
and  where  I  had  leisure  to  admire  its  beauty.  The 
canoe  was  floating  pleasantly  through  a  rich  wood  of 
oak  and  chestnut  with  here  and  there  a  group  of  grace- 
ful poplars.  It  was  a  constant  succession  of  scenes  like 
the  one  given  opposite,  whose  exquisite  loveliness  it  is 
not  easy  to  convey  by  Art. 


An  Etcher  s  Voyage  of  Discovery.        273 


CHAPTER    III. 

THE  etching  which  illustrated  the  end  of  our' last 
chapter  was  done  on  the  copper  from  Nature  at 
a  little  place  that  seemed  convenient  for  lunch.  A  few 
square  yards  of  firm  sand-bank  lay  between  the  dense 
underwood  and  a  deep  pool,  and  this  sand-bank  was 
covered  with  short  grass.  The  canoe  was  drawn  up 
here,  and  her  owner  took  out  the  materials  for  luncheon, 
and  made  what  would  have  been  a  solitary  meal,  if  Tom 
had  not  come  up  in  great  glee,  doubly  delighted  at  find- 
ing his  master  on  terra  firma,  and  all  the  signs  of  a 
festival  spread  out  around  him.  Tom  loves  his  master 
dearly,  but  his  affection  for  beef  and  mutton  is  at  least 
equally  strong ;  and  it  is  probable  that  the  happiest 
hours  of  Tom's  existence  are  such  hours  as  this,  when, 
in  addition  to  the  excitement  of  travel,  and  the  free  ex- 
penditure of  his  immense  energy,  he  has  the  satisfaction 
of  dining  with  his  master  on  terms  of  something  like 
equality.  All  the  little  boys  had  now  been  left  behind 
except  one,  and  he,  unfortunately  for  his  own  interest, 
was  on  the  other  side  of  the  stream.  I  wanted  to  get 
him  over  and  invite  him  to  lunch,  and  crossed  for  the 
purpose  in  the  canoe  ;  but  the  canoe  only  held  one  per- 
son, and  the  youth  did  not  sit  steadily,  so  that  before  we 
were  two  yards  from  the  shore  a  capsize  seemed  inevita- 
ble, and  I  put  back.  After  luncheon  the  voyage  was  re- 

18 


274  The  Unknown  River. 

sumed ;  the  nature  of  it  will  be  best  gathered  from  the 
etching. 

There  are  two  little  villages  in  the  region  where  I 
was  now  voyaging,  about  a  mile  apart,  and  bearing  the 
same  name  of  Voudenay ;  so,  to  know  one  from  the 
other,  the  inhabitants  have  called  them  Voudenay-l'Eglise 
and  Voudenay-le-Chateau.  My  first  day's  voyage  was 
from  one  of  these  villages  to  the  other,  total  distance 
one  mile.  The  reader  may  laugh  if  he  likes,  but  that  is 
about  the  proper  degree  of  speed  for  an  artist  on  his 
travels. 

After  dark,  as  I  wished  to  get  a  few  miles  lower  down 
the  stream,  I  determined,  as.  the  moon  did  not  rise  tilh 
rather  late,  to  continue  the  voyage  by  lamp-light.  The 
canoe  was  provided  with  a  carriage-lamp  for  the  pur- 
pose, which  was  fixed  in  the  forepart  of  the  deck,  and  it 
was  found  quite  possible  to  pursue  a  very  intricate  and 
sometimes  even  perilous  navigation  by  the  help  of  this 
artificial  light.  Where  the  narrow  river  was  most  thickly 
shaded  on  both  sides  by  dense  vegetation,  the  branches 
meeting  immediately  overhead,  and  festooned  with  over-, 
hanging  creepers,  the  lamp-light  gave  a  strange  beauty 
to  the  scene  ;  and  as  the  canoe  floated  somewhat  rapidly 
down  this  little  green  corridor,  it  seemed  like  a  voyage 
in  fairyland.  Every  tiny  leaf  and  spray,  every  slender 
thread  of  stalk,  came  for  one  moment  out  of  the  black- 
ness of  night  into  the  full  brilliance  of  the  lamp-light, 
then  passed  into  the  darkness  behind.  An  endless  suc- 
cession of  this  inexhaustible  loveliness  made  the  night 
voyage  one  continual  enchantment,  and  I  was  not  sorry 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.         275 

to  have  seen  a  river  under  an  aspect  so  strikingly  new. 
There  exists,  unfortunately,  an  especial  difficulty  in  ren- 
dering the  peculiar  beauty  of  these  effects  in  etching  ; 
and,  knowing  this,  I  have  not  wasted  time  in  the  at- 
tempt. The  art  of  etching  cannot  reserve  white  lines 
of  sufficient  thinness  and  purity  to  give  the  effect  of 
lamp-light  on  delicate  sprays  and  grasses.  The  effect 
would  be  broadly  given,  and  it  would  be  possible  enough 
to  reserve  white  lines,  but  not  with  the  fineness  neces- 
sary to  do  full  justice  to  the  kind  of  delicacy  which,  in 
subjects  such  as  these,  would  become  the  particular 
aim  of  the  artist.  Nothing  struck  me  so  much,  in  this 
delightful  little  voyage  with  the  lamp,  as  the  exquisite 
tenuity  of  the  smaller  plants  as  they  came  out  with  tiny 
leaves  and  stems  against  the  black  void  of  night.  This 
might  be  approximately  interpreted  in  wood-engraving, 
which  most  naturally  works  in  white  lines,  but  not  so 
well  in  other  processes.  It  was  found  that  this  voyag- 
ing by  night  added  considerably  to  the  interest  of  the 
exploration,  for  the  mystery  of  the  unknown  was  still 
more  strongly  felt  when  all  that  lay  before  us  was  in 
absolute  darkness,  and  only  became  suddenly  illumi- 
nated as  the  lamp  approached. 

He  who  attempts  the  exploration  of  a  river  not  re- 
puted navigable  must  be  prepared  for  passages  of  such 
extreme  difficulty  that  it  may  be  necessary  to  remove 
his  canoe  altogether  from  the  water,  and  drag  her  over 
the  dry  land.  The  morning  after  the  voyage  by  lamp- 
light I  had  a  good  deal  of  such  work,  so  much  that  at 
length  I  lost  patience  and  hired  a  spring-cart  in  which 


276  The  Unknown  River. 

both  the  vessel  and  her  owner  were  transported  by 
a  fast-trotting  horse  to  a  place  four  kilometres  lower 
down,  whilst  Tom  galloped  along  the  road  with  a  sense 
of  freedom  much  greater  than  any  which  he  had  enjoyed 
amongst  the  tangled  vegetation  of  the  river's  bank. 

When  the  boat  was  launched  again,  the  stream  took 
quite  a  new  character.  Instead  of  flowing  with  a  cur- 
rent of  equal  breadth,  and  almost  equal  rapidity,  it  now 
alternately  slept  in  calm  pools  and  rushed  hurriedly  over 
short  pebbly  shallows.  It  is  difficult,  in  words,  to  convey 
any  idea  of  the  variety  of  these  beautiful  pools,  except 
by  simply  saying  that  they  are  various.  If  there  were 
eighty  of  them,  or  a  hundred  of  them,  or  however  many 
there  may  have  been,  there  were  just  as  many  new  and 
admirable  pictures.  The  shallows,  too  (though  in  pass- 
ing rapidly  over  them  we  had  not  time  to  think  of  much 
but  the  safety  of  the  canoe),  were  by  no  means  the  least 
interesting  portions  of  the  voyage,  especially  when  they 
turned  mysterious  corners,  and  opened  out  new  glimpses 
down  the  stream.  At  length  we  came  to  a  pool  so  very 
long  and  so  very  tranquil  that  it  seemed  as  if  it  would 
never  end.  The  canoe  glided  over  its  glassy  surface  for 
many  a  long  minute,  and,  just  as  the  explorer  rested  on 
his  paddle  and  the  little  vessel  had  gone  forward  alone 
so  long  that  the  impetus  was  dying  gradually  away, 
something  unwonted  was  reflected  in  the  smooth  water ; 
and,  instead  of  the  accustomed  intricacy  of  boughs  and 
fluttering  of  innumerable  leaves,  the  voyager  saw  great 
stones  as  of  a  feudal  castle,  and  surely  on  the  green 
shore  there  stood  a  great  ruin ! 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.        277 

Whoever  wishes  to  enjoy  the  sight  of  some  noble  ruin 
should  come  upon  it  in  this  unpremeditated  way.  One- 
half  the  delight  of  it  is  in  the  surprise.  When  you  have 
been  told  at  starting,  by  a  guide-book,  that  '  at  three 
miles  from  your  inn  is  such  a  castle,  now  ruinous  but 
formerly  belonging  to  the  Counts  of,  &c., '  and  read 
the  description  of  it  in  detail,  you  will  either  be  quietly 
pleased  or  provokingly  disappointed ;  but  you  will  never 
feel  the  gladness  of  a  delightful  surprise.  How  noble 
look  the  gray  old  towers  when  the  mind  has  been  occu- 
pied all  day  with  Nature  and  forgotten  the  history  of 
man  !  What  a  welcome  interruption  to  the  perpetua1 
sylvan  harmony ! 

This  ruined  Castle  of  Igornay  has  towers,  round  and 
square,  and  a  great  court-yard,  now  full  of  the  pictur- 
esque of  a  French  farm.  It  has  true  machicolations, 
and  must  have  been  a  strong  place  formerly.  I  found 
a  young  miller  at  the  mill,  who  was  more  intelligent 
than  lads  of  his  class  usually  are,  and  a  diligent  reader 
of  the  newspaper.  All  the  recent  events  in  Italy  and 
America  were  familiar  to  him,  and  he  asked  me  a  hun- 
dred questions.  As  it  was  cold,  he  made  a  blazing  fire 
for  me,  and  when  I  left  helped  to  carry  the  boat,  so  as  to 
avoid  the  mill-weir.  There  are  some  shallows  just  below 
Igornay,  so  the  young  miller  waded  and  dragged  the  boat 
after  him,  with  me  in  it,  till  we  got  into  deeper  water  ; 
1  •  would  not  hear  of  my  wading,  though  I  told  him  I 
was  accustomed  to  it,  and  it  would  do  me  no  harm.  I 
paid  him  with  nothing  but  thanks. 

Few  hours  of  travel  have  ever  been  more  delightful 


278  The  Unknown  River. 

than  those  which  now  followed.  A  misty  morning  had 
ended  in  an  afternoon  of  brilliant  sunshine ;  the  river  was 
seldom  less  than  three  or  four  feet  deep,  and  it  turned 
continually,  every  turn  offering  some  new  and  beautiful 
picture.  The  splendid  autumn  trees  burned  in  the  glow- 
ing light  against  the  pure  blue  of  an  unclouded  sky,  and 
their  long  reflections  trailed  in  glimmering  gold  on  the 
calm  surface  of  the  quiet,  sequestered  pools.  In  such 
delightful  scenery  as  this  two  or  three  miles  a  day 
seemed  only  too  rapid  travelling ;  I  longed  continually 
to  tie  the  boat  to  some  tree,  and  etch  whilst  any  light 
remained.  Soon,  however,  the  stream  narrowed  again, 
and  an  impetuous  current  rushed  under  closely  woven 
boughs,  and  between  many  awkward  snags.  Many  a 
place  seemed  impassable,  but  the  stream  was  too  swift 
and  too  narrow  to  admit  of  any  going  back,  and  there 
was  nothing  for  it  but  to  shut  one's  eyes  and  dash  at 
the  branches  with  the  paddle  lying  useless  on  the  deck. 
Once  the  boat  was  jammed  between  a  root  and  a  tree 
where  the  stream  was  strongest,  but  I  got  through  by 
pulling  at  the  tree  with  both  hands.  As  for  landing,  it 
was  out  of  the  question  ;  there  was  no  land  to  be  seen, 
nothing  but  branches,  —  branches  everywhere,  overhead, 
before,  behind,  to  the  right  and  to  the  left,  with  an  im- 
petuous current  under  them,  strong,  swift,  and  deep. 
Then  I  heard  a  roar  of  water  amongst  rocks,  and,  in  an 
instant,  turning  a  corner,  found  myself  at  the  foot  of  a 
steep  hill,  thickly  wooded  as  far  as  I  could  see ;  and 
where  the  water  had  eaten  into  the  hill  the  rocks  were 
bare,  a  long  row  of  them,  and  there  were  stones  in  the 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.       279 

stream,  over  which  it  boiled  with  white  foam.  How- 
ever, there  was  paddle-room,  and  I  .was  really  far  safer 
than  five  minutes  before  under  the  branches.  Whilst 
happily  congratulating  myself  on  my  escape  from  so 
many  difficulties,  I  turned  a  sharp  corner  ;  a  long  branch 
lay  athwart  the  stream  from  side  to  side,  two  feet  above 
the  water ;  the  boat  passed  under  it,  but  I  could  not 
diminish  myself  sufficiently  to  pass  under  it  too,  so  was 
upset  in  an  instant,  and  fell  in  head  first. 


UNIVERSITY 


280  The  Unknown  River. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

THE  shipwreck  that  ended  the  last  chapter  occurred 
just  at  sunset.  After  a  night's  rest  in  a  poor  cot- 
tage, the  voyage  was  resumed  in  the  brilliant  light  of  a 
new  and  cloudless  day. 

The  river  was  still  most  dangerous,  slipping  furtively 
and  fast  through  the  thickest  underwood,  turning  sharply 
in  unforeseen  ways  and  places,  like  a  panther  in  the 
dense  jungle. 

At  last,  after  being  hurried  down  a  narrow  channel, 
with  about  as  much  freedom  of  will  as  the  train  in  an 
atmospheric  tube,  we  came  suddenly  out  upon  a  great 
open  pool.  This  was  the  confluence  of  the  Arroux  and 
the  Dre*e,  and  the  Arroux " had  doubled  his  substance 
by  this  alliance. 

Before  it,  he  had  been  a  wild  young  rivulet  of  the 
most  imprudent  and  impetuous  character ;  after  it,  he 
had  times  of  leisure,  and  lived  in  visible  dignity,  an  im- 
portant occupier  of  land.  Imagine  a  constant  succes- 
sion of  large  and  beautiful  pools  linked  together  by  rapid 
babbling  shallows  on  which  the  canoe  darted  gayly  and 
swiftly  without  grounding.  The  pools  were  deep,  with 
sloping  bottoms  of  the  finest  sand,  perfect  bathing-places 
every  one,  and  every  one  a  picture. 

After  many  windings,  one  curve  of  the  beautiful  river 
disclosed  a  noble  city,  rising  far  off  on  the  slope  of  a 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.       281 

lofty  hill,  blue  in  the  haze  of  the  bright  afternoon,  with 
massive  walls  and  many  towers.  It  is  old  Augusto- 
dunum,  once  the  sister  of  Rome  and  her  rival,  since 
then  strong  in  the  middle  ages  with  all  the  picturesque 
strength  of  turret  and  battlement,  now  narrowed  till 
within  the  vast  enclosure  of  the  Roman  fortifications  the 
market-gardener  grows  his  vegetables,  and  the  farmer 
ploughs  his  fields.  Still  by  the  quiet  river  the  Roman 
wall  stands  rugged,  rich  branches  hanging  over  it,  heavy 
and  full,  and  striving  to  reach  the  flowing  water.  And 
the  Roman  gate  still  augustly  receives  the  traveller  as 
he  crosses  the  bridge  over  the  Arroux,  its  gray  arches 
and  pilasters  borne  high  over  the  mighty  portals  with  a 
little  statue  of  the  Virgin  between  them,  record  of  the 
faith  of  the  middle  ages,  and  a  gas-lamp  to  prove  that 
the  modern  time  has  come. 

A  great  and  wonderful  Roman  city,  one  of  the  noblest 
in  the  Roman  world,  stood  here  on,  the  banks  of  the 
Arroux.  In  the  circuit  of  her  walls  were  more  than  two 
hundred  towers.  She  had  a  great  amphitheatre,  and 
innumerable  temples,  and  theatres,  and  baths.  The  soil 
to  this  day  is  full  of  fragments  of  precious  marbles  from 
the  luxurious  Roman  dwellings.  For  a  thousand  years 
the  earth  has  been  yielding  a  harvest  of  antiquities,  still 
inexhaustible ;  columns,  and  statues,  and  bronzes,  and 
pavements  of  Roman  mosaic.  And  when  the  glorious 
Roman  city,  SOROR  ET  AEMULA  ROMAE,  was  utterly 
ravaged  and  destroyed,  there  arose  upon  her  site  a 
mediaeval  city,  smaller,  yet  not  less  beautiful,  so  that  a 
king  of  France  called  it  his  '  City  of  Beautiful  Towers.' 


282  The  Unknown  River. 

But  the  mediaeval  city  has  disappeared  almost  as  com- 
pletely as  the  Roman.  The  classic  amphitheatre  is 
razed  to  the  ground  ;  of  the  mediaeval  cathedral  (a  great 
edifice  of  the  purest  Gothic)  there  remains  one  arch  in  a 
garden.  The  present  cathedral  is  a  church  which  stood 
under  the  shadow  of  the  old  one.  A  few  fragments  of 
the  mediaeval  city  remain  here  and  there,  —  the  house  of 
Rolin,  chancellor  of  Burgundy,  now  a  carpenter's  shop, 
a  tower  of  the  old  Donjon,  and  here  and  there  a  few 
houses  of  the  thirteenth  or  fourteenth  century.  Still 
Autun  is  a  picturesque  and  quaint  place,  full  of  endless 
subjects  for  an  etcher. 

If  there  is  any  thing  in  the  history  of  the  past  that 
can  move  or  interest  the  present,  the  past  of  this  strange 
city  cannot  leave  us  cold.  Who  could  float  here  on  the 
Arroux,  close  to  the  Roman  wall,  without  thinking  of  all 
that  has  happened  here,  by  the  shore  of  this  now  peace- 
ful river  ?  A  simple  catalogue  of  the  vicissitudes  of  this 
city,  unparalleled  in  the  succession  of  her  misfortunes, 
reads  like  some  marvellous  poem.  The  story  of  all  her 
sieges  has  a  Homeric  grandeur. 

First  she  was  ravaged  by  Tetricus.  After  a  resistance 
of  seven  months  she  was  punished  by  the  conqueror  of 
Tetricus,  Aurelian.  Ruined  by  German  hordes  in  the 
third  century,  she  was  sacked  again  under  Diocletian. 
For  twenty-five  years  she  lay  prostrate  in  her  ashes,  and 
the  lands  about  her  were  untilled.  She  was  punished 
again  by  Constantius  after  the  defeat  of  Magnentius. 
She  was  besieged  by  Chonodomarus  and  Vestralphus ; 
and  after  that  by  the  Vandals  ;  and  after  that  by  the  Bur- 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.        283 

gundians  ;  and  then  by  Attila,  who  massacred  the  inhab- 
itants and  reduced  the  whole  place  to  ashes.  Childebert 
and  Clotaire  ruined  the  city  on  the  flight  of  Godniar. 
The  Saracens  sacked  Autun ;  the  Normans  sacked  it  in 
886,  and  a  few  years  later  Rollo  pillaged  it  again.  After 
the  battle  of  Poictiers  the  English  came  and  burned  part 
of  the  city.  Admiral  Coligny  came  and  burned  a  pri- 
ory and  the  palace  of  an  abbot,  pillaging  the  abbey. 
Towards  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  Autun  was 
beseiged  by  the  Marshal  Daumont,  and  her  archives 
used  for  gun-wadding. 

There  are  great  incidents  in  her  history  :  the  martyr- 
dom of  St.  Symphorien,  the  visit  of  Bishop  Proculus  to 
Attila.  The  reader  may  remember  the  great  picture  by 
Ingres,  of  the  young  Symphorien  led  by  the  Roman 
lictors  to  execution,  his  mother  encouraging  him  from 
the  wall.  And  if  Symphorien  sacrificed  himself  for  his 
faith,  Proculus  did  the  same  for  his  fellow-citizens.  He 
went  to  Attila's  camp  to  entreat  him  to  spare  the  city, 
and  Attila  beheaded  him. 

A  memorable  circumstance,  in  another  way,  was  the 
visit  of  Constantine  to  Autun.  Constantine  had  raised 
the  city  from  ruin  and  despair ;  rebuilt  her  edifices,  re- 
established her  schools.  Finally  he  came  in  person  with 
his  court.  The  expression  of  the  people's  gratitude 
moved  him  to  tears.  He  forgave  them  five  whole  years 
of  taxes. 

The  saddest  history  connected  with  the  city  is  that  of 
poor  Queen  Brunehault,  early  in  the  seventh  century. 
She  wished  to  place  her  grandson  (she  had  four)  on  the 


284  The  Unknown  River. 

throne  of  her  son  Tyherri,  who  was  dead.  Clotaire  II. 
had  the  four  sons  arrested.  The  queen  herself  was 
arrested  near  the  lake  of  Yverdun,  and  taken  to  Clo- 
taire's  camp  in  Burgundy.  Three  days  of  torture  ended 
by  a  derisive  promenade  on  a  camel  through  the  .camp. 
Her  grandsons  were  slaughtered  before  her  eyes  ;  then 
she  herself  was  tied  to  the  tail- of  a  wild  norse.  -Her 
body  was  brought  to  Autun  and  laid  in  a  marble  tomb. 

But  the  grandest  and  noblest  action  of  all  that  shed 
lustre  on  the  antique  city  is  the  refusal  of  the  Count  de 
Charni  to  execute  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew. 
There  were  eight  hundred  Calvinists  in  the  place,  and 
the  order  came  to  slay  them  ;  but  the  advocate  Jeannin 
recommended  the  Bailly,  de  Charni,  to  disobey  the 
royal  mandate,  and  they  spared  the  Calvinists,  to  their 
own  eternal  honor.  In  his  disobedience  De  Charni 
had  the  boldness  to  tell  the  king  that  he  wished  to  leave 
him  time  to  reflect  upon  orders  issued  in  anger  ;  and  the 
Chancellor,  on  reading  De  Charni's  letter  to  his  majesty, 
observed :  '  Cest  un  juge  de  village  qui  nous  prtscrit 
notre  devoir  ! ' 

The  bishops  of  Autun,  when  newly  appointed,  used 
to  make  a  solemn  entry  into  their  city.  They  had  an 
episcopal  residence  at  Lucenay  (an  exquisitely  beautiful 
little  place  amongst  the  hills),  and  the  new  bishop  left 
this  residence  in  state.  But  he  did  not  enter  Autun  at 
once.  First  he  stopped  at  the  monastery  of  St.  Andoche, 
without  the  walls,  and  the  abbess  was  obliged  to  enter- 
tain him  and  all  his  retinue.  Near  the  convent  there 
was  a  country-house  called  Genetoie,  and  the  proprietor 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.       285 

of  it  was  obliged  to  give  the  bishop  hot  watei  for  his 
feet,  an  obligation  much  less  heavy  than  that  which  fell 
upon  the  abbess.  The  bishop  went  to  Genetoie  to  await 
the  arrival  of  the  chapter.  When  they  came  he  pre- 
sented himself  at  the  closed  door  of  the  cloister,  and 
was  refused  admission  twice,  answering  each  time  that 
he  was  the  bishop  of  Autun.  The  third  time  he  was 
admitted,  and  took  the  oath. 

The  accompanying  illustration  shows  all  that  remain 
of  the  house  of  Genetoie  as  it  appeared  when  islanded 
by  the  flood  of  1866. 


286  The  Unknown  River. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  bishops  made  their  entry  into  the  city  by  the 
bridge  of  St.  Andoche,  but  one  of  them  went  out 
of  it  again  by  the  other  bridge,  and  his  carriage-wheels 
rattled  on  the  road  to  Paris  ;  and  in  Paris  he  took  up  a 
new  trade  which  he  practised  with  the  most  distinguished 
success.  Can  you  fancy  Talleyrand  as  a  bishop  going 
about  gravely  in  violet,  and  giving  his  precious  benedic- 
tion ?  All  the  portraits  I  ever  saw  of  him  represent  him 
^in  court  dress,  and  nothing  is  more  difficult  than  to  rid 
one's  self,  even  temporarily,  of  an  association.  The  con- 
verse difficulty  is  that  of  imagining  Pius  IX.  as  an  offi- 
cer of  dragoons.  Had  it  been  possible  to  see  the  two 
together,  in  the  garb  of  their  first  professions,  who 
would  have  guessed  which  was  to  become  a  famous 
pope,  and  which  an  equally  celebrated  diplomatist  ? 

When  Autun  was  left  behind,  the  river  went  for  half 
a  mile  in  such  a  stately  manner  that  anybody  would 
have  given  it  credit  for  being  navigable  in  the  most 
serious  sense  of  the  word,  —  navigable  for  vessels  laden 
with  much  more  valuable  merchandise  than  the  mate- 
rials of  an  unpopular  art.  In  this  long,  quiet  reach  the 
lads  from  the  college  came  to  practise  themselves  in 
swimming,  and  this  led  me  to  think  about  three  youths 
who  may  have  bathed  here  not  so  very  long  ago,  but 
whose  history  was  at  least  as  romantic  as  that  of  the 


An  Etcher^  s  Voyage  of  Discovery.       287 

Greek  and  Roman  heroes  they  read  about  in  their  text- 
books at  the  college.  One  of  these  youths  was  called 
Neapoleonne  de  Bounaparte,*  and  the  two  others  were 
brothers  of  his.  Napoleon  did  not  remain  quite  four 
months  at  the  college  of  Autun  (the  fact  is  unknown  to 
all  his  biographers),  but  his  brother  Joseph  stayed  here 
as  many  years.  Napoleon's  little  cell  (the  colleges  had 
cells  in  those  days)  still  existed  two  or  three  years 
since.  It  was  positively  known  to  be  one  of  the  five  or 
six  that  remained,  but  which  there  was  no  means  of 
ascertaining. 

At  length  the  towers  of  Autun,  which  showed  them- 
selves in  glimpses  during  the  windings  of  the  river,  and 
completed  in  this  way  a  hundred  pretty  compositions, 
disappeared  finally  behind  a  spur  of  hill  clothed  with  a 
dense  pine  forest.  Once  more  the  canoe  floated  on  a 
quite  lonely  river  without  evidence  of  human  labor  or 
habitation,  except  now  and  then  the  smoke  of  a  distant 
farm,  or  the  cry  of  the  drivers  of  oxen,  generally  the 
name  of  each  animal,  sung  out  with  a  musical  cadence. 
It  was  pleasant  to  get  into  the  perfect  country  again, 
though  Autun  scarcely  seems  a  city,  and  the  Arroux 
flows  past  it  undisturbed  by  human  interference  except 
when  the  strong  brown-skinned  horsemen  ride  up  to 
their  waists  in  the  water,  and  the  fishermen  cast  their 
nets. 

Westwards  rose  the  blue  mass  of  the  Beuvray,  where 
recent   investigations  have  fixed  the  site  of  a  city  older 
than  Augustodunum,  the  Bibracte  of  the   Gauls.     But 
*  So  entered  on  the  college  books. 


288  The  Unknown  River. 

Bibracte  is  almost  without  a  history.  Caesar  went  there, 
and  said  that  it  was  a  great  stronghold,  and  took  provi- 
sions from  it  for  his  army,  but  left  us  scarcely  a  word  of 
description.  Bibracte  can  never  have  been  more  than 
a  great  fortified  hill-village,  or  Gaulish  oppidum,  com- 
posed of  very  rude  huts,  huddled  close  together,  and 
protected  by  solid  walls  built  in  the  strong  Gaulish  way, 
with  logs  nailed  together  with  huge  nails,  and  earth  and 
stone  between  them.  Floating  down  the  river  in  the 
evening  I  saw  the  last  flames  of  sunset  die  behind  the 
Beuvray,  and  the  majesty  of  its  purple  crests  was  en- 
hanced by  its  ancient  strength.  What  is  on  the  hill- 
crest  now  ?  On  the  site  of  the  buried  city  is  a  forest  of 
old  gnarled  beeches,  and  in  the  midst  of  the  forest  stands 
a  little  camp  of  huts,  where  an  antiquary  passes  his  sum- 
mers, with  a  band  of  faithful  men.  Even  now,  I  thought, 
in  the  evening,  he  is  standing  on  some  brow  of  rock, 
and  looking  over  the  boundless  plains.  He  can  see  the 
lands  beyond  the  Loire,  and  the  whole  course  of  the 
river  "that  I  am  obscurely  exploring.  And  when  the 
twilight  comes,  and  his  evening  walk  is  over,  he  will  go 
to  his  wooden  hut  and  sleep  amidst  his  trophies.  A 
pleasant,  enthusiastic,  absorbed  life  he  has  of  it  up 
there!  He  tells  me  that  there  is  danger  in  the  delight 
of  it,  the  danger  of  a  too  complete  abandonment  to  the 
enjoyment  of  glorious  Nature  and  the  dear  antiquarian 
dream.  He  has  a  charming  house  in  the  city,  with  its 
salons  filled  with  pictures  and  its  museum  with  antiqui- 
ties, and  only  a  rough  hut  up  there  on  the  mountain  ; 
but  every  year  as  the  summer  comes  he  longs  for  the 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.        289 

little  hut,  and  the  free  range  of  the  wild  forest,  and 
the  fresh,  high  air,  and  the  silence  and  the  calm,  and 
the  healthy  days  of  toil,  and  the  lonely  evening  walks 
about  the  hill,  and  the  vast,  illimitable  horizons.  Who- 
ever has  once  known  this  passion  for  wild  Nature  never, 
whilst  health  lasts,  can  lose  it.  There  comes  upon  him 
every  year,  first  a  vague  uneasiness,  then  a  craving  and 
longing  for  something,  he  knows  not  what,  and  then  he 
begins  to  dream  at  night  of  regions  beautiful  and  wild. 
The  streets  of  the  town,  even  the  spacious  country- 
house,  begin  to  feel  like  prisons,  and  he  wants  to  get 
out  into  the  forest,  or  on  the  mountain,  or  float  on  flow- 
ing rivers  and  tossing  seas. 

In  consequence  of  having  etched  the  little  plate  which 
the  reader  has  just  seen,  I  had  to  paddle  some  miles 
after  sunset,  and  did  not  reach  the  next  village  until 
darkness  had  fairly  set  in.  The  river,  fortunately,  pre- 
sented few  of  those  dangers  which  had  been  so  frequent 
in  the  earlier  part  of  its  course.  There  were  a  few 
rapids  here  and  there,  but  not  dangerous  rapids,  and 
now  and  then  one  of  those  disturbed  places  called  '  re- 
mous?  produced  by  sudden  alterations  in  the  form  of  the 
river's  bed,  often  at  a  considerable  depth.  On  the  whole, 
however,  the  river  was  safer  here  than  anywhere  else  on 
its  whole  course  until  it  reached  the  plain  of  the  Loire, 
and  this  will  be  readily  understood  after  a  few  words  on 
the  geology  of  the  district.  The  basin  of  Autun  is  a 
wide  valley  hollowed  in  the  rock,  formerly  a  lake-bed, 
and  afterwards  filled  to  the  brim  with  alluvial  deposits. 
It  is  through  these  deposits  that  the  river  cuts  its  serpen- 

'9 


290  The  Unknown  River. 

tine  course,  and  so  long  as  it  has  to  do  with  nothing  but 
soft  loam,  and  sand,  and  little  rounded  pebbles,  the  navi- 
gation is  safe  and  easy.  But  when  we  come  to  the  thick 
granite  lip  of  the  great  basin,  we  shall  find  that  the  stream 
suddenly  takes  a  new  character.  It  is  a  lowland  river  in 
the  basin  of  Autun,  a  highland  stream  for  twenty  miles 
as  it  crosses  the  rocky  edge  of  the  basin,  and  after  that  a 
lowland  river  again  as  it  meanders  through  the  plain  of 
the  Loire.  This  accounts  for  my  getting  safely  to  the 
inn  after  dark ;  a  little  lower  down  all  night-travelling 
was  out  of  the  question. 

But  at  the  inn  there  was  not  a  bed  to  be  had,  so  I  went 
to  a  country-house  on  the  other  side  of  the  river,  belong- 
ing to  a  rich  land-owner  whom  I  did  not  know  personally, 
but  who  had  an  encouraging  reputation  for  hospitality. 
Going  to  beg  a  night's  lodging  at  a  private  house  where 
you  are  unknown  requires  more  assurance,  I  think,  than 
any  thing  I  ever  attempted. 

The  master  of  the  mansion  was  absent.  The  butler 
put  his  head  out  of  a  bedroom  window  and  heard  my 
petition.  The  butler  was  a  very  decent  fellow ;  he 
dressed  himself  and  came  downstairs,  and  kindly  heard 
all  I  had  to  say.  For  a  moment  I  believed  the  difficulty 
overcome,  but  unluckily  the  favorable  impression  which 
I  had  succeeded  in  making  on  this  man's  mind  availed 
me  nothing,  for  the  supreme  authority  was  the  house- 
keeper, She  put  her  face  out  of  a  window,  an  ugly  vis- 
age whose  thousand  wrinkles  were  strongly  illumined  by 
a  candle  in  her  skinny  hand,  and  one  glance  assured  me 
that  she  would  be  inexorable.  Nothing  could  be  more 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.       291 

decided  than  her  refusal.  And  they  talk  of  the  tender- 
heartedness of  women  ! 

How  and  where  I  passed  that  night  shall  be  a  mystery. 
How  do  vagrants  and  vagabonds  pass  theirs  ? 

This  castle  is  the  Castle  of  Chaseux,  a  picturesque  old 
ruin  by  the  river-side,  in  a  charming  situation.  The 
effect  is  more  picturesque  in  the  etching  than  in  the 
reality,  because  he  who  only  sees  the  drawing  does  not 
realize  the  curiously  small  scale  of  the  towers.  They 
are  decidedly  the  tiniest  towers  -I  ever  saw  in  any  castle 
of  feudal  times ;  but  they  looked  larger,  no  doubt,  when 
they  had  their  pepper-box  roofs.  For  the  rest  the  place 
is  not  without  grandeur,  and  it  has  some  literary  interest 
as  an  occasional  residence  of  Madame  de  SeVigne'  with 
that  cousin  of  hers,  Roger  de  Rabutin,  Count  de  Bussy, 
commonly  called  Bussy  Rabutin.  How  she  could  ever 
forgive  him  his  offences  against  decency,  and  his  slan- 
ders against  herself,  is  one  of  the  mysteries  of  the 
womanly  heart.  I  never  had  the  curiosity  to  read  any 
thing  of  Bussy' s  except  a  few  of  his  brevities.  One  does 
not  care  to  plunge  into  dirty  water  ;  it  is  enough  for  me 
that  Bussy  shocked  Louis  XIV.  (not  an  eminent  model 
of  virtue)  to  such  a  degree  that  the  indignant  monarch 
first  put  him  into  the  Bastile,  and  afterwards  banished 
him  to  his  estates  in  Burgundy.  Here,  at  Chaseux,  he 
spent  part  of  his  seventeen  years  of  exile ;  and  it  is  one 
of  the  most  extraordinary  instances  of  the  irony  of  fate, 
that  the  portrait  of  this  wretched  noble,  who  disgraced 
his  family  and  his  age,  actually  now  hangs  in  the  little 
village  church  where  he  heard  mass,  —  hangs  over  the 


292  The  Unknown  River. 

altar,  and  does  duty  as  a  saint.  The  dress  and  accesso- 
ries have  been  repainted,  to  suit  the  present  destination 
of  the  work  ;  but  the  worldly,  seventeenth-century  face 
looks  still  out  of  its  flowing  wig,  between  the  tall  candles 
on  the  altar.  And  the  priest  kneels,  and  the  people  bow, 
and  the  incense  rises  before  it ! 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.        293 


CHAPTER    VI. 

THIS  etching  is  intended  to  represent  one  of  those 
effects  of  twilight  on  the  river  which  are  amongst 
the  charms  of  a  lonely  voyage.  You  see  the  great 
masses  of  the  magnificent  trees,  but  you  hardly  see  the 
dark  ground  they  stand  upon,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  tell 
where  the  water  ends  and  the  land  begins.  For  the  full 
enjoyment  of  such  an  hour  as  this,  the  scenery  should  be 
previously  unknown  to  you,  that  the  sense  of  mystery 
may  be  felt  in  its  fullest  intensity  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  ought  not  to  be  any  apprehension  of  danger.  It  is 
after  a  day  of  peril  and  adventure  that  you  most  enjoy 
the  peace  of  the  solemn  gloaming,  when  the  reaches  of 
the  river  sleep  in  their  glassy  calm,  and  the  heron  lifts 
himself  languidly  on  the  breadth  of  his  great  gray 
win^s. 

The  heron  is  not  mentioned  by  accident  or  put  in  for 
the  sake  of  a  poetical  effect.  He  was  there.  He  passed 
the  canoe  like  a  winged  shadow,  and  then  rose  in  the 
calm,  pure  air.  Just  then  came  a  great  flock  of  rooks, 
and,  as  they  were  flying  about  four  hundred  feet  above 
me,  the  heron  attained  nearly  the  same  altitude.  The 
impertinent  rooks  attacked  the  noble  bird  (fit  game  for 
peregrine  falcons  ! ),  and  they  plagued  him  and  insulted 
him  till  he  knew  not  what  to  make  of  it.  But  he  pre- 
sented his  sharp,  long  beak  to  his  assailants,  and  after 


294  The  Unknown  River. 

teasing  him  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  they  left  him  to  take 
his  lonely  way  in  peace. 

Danger  a-head  !  O  captain  !  hearest  thou  not  the 
roar  of  the  rapid  ? 

It  was  time  to  cease  gazing  up  into  the  unfathomable 
blue ;  it  was  time  to  get  a  firm  seat,  and  grasp  the  paddle 
well !  No  more  enjoyment  of  the  poetry  of  the  twilight, 
only  a  wish  for  the  '  light  of  common  day/  wherein  all 
sweet  illusions  fade. 

It  was  a  great  rapid  amongst  boulders,  the  largest  of 
which  were  as  big  as  the  room  you  are  sitting  in,  dear 
reader.  They  were  scattered  to  the  right  and  to  the 
left,  and  one  or  two  ugly  fellows  apparently  barred  the 
way.  The  channels  were  narrow  and  deep,  and  the  water 
hissed  and  twisted  amongst  them  like  serpents.  A  yel- 
low glimmer  from  the  evening  sky  shone  on  the  swift 
currents,  and  said,  'I  show  you  all  their  complexity  — 
select ! ' 

After  another  rapid,  apparently  much  less  dangerous 
than  the  first,  and  in  reality  (as  often  happens)  much 
more  so,  the  author  arrived  at  Etang,  a  little  old  village, 
with  two  fine  bridges  and  a  railway  station  just  built. 
There  were  some  good  subjects  for  etching  in  this  place, 
especially  the  old  houses  near  the  river. 

A  relic  of  great  interest  for  me  (who  have  a  peculiar 
weakness  for  tents  and  encamping)  is  preserved  at  the 
house  of  a  rich  man  in  the  neighborhood  of  Etang.  It 
is  a  fragment  of  the  famous  pavilion  of  Charles  the 
Bold,  which  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  victorious  Swiss, 
after  the  battle  of  Granson.  The  faded  glory  of  its 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.        295 

magnificent  embroidery  recalled  the  costliest  of  all  the 
countless  tents  that  ever  trembled  at  the  blast  of  trum- 
pets ;  and  such  is  the  power  of  great  associations,  that 
the  last  rag  and  remnant  of  a  splendor  which  dazzled 
men's  eyes  four  hundred  years  ago  gives  poetry  to  the 
house  where  it  is  preserved,  and  to  the  very  landscape 
that  lies  around  it. 

Etang  possessed,  at  the  time  of  my  visit,  the  ugliest 
church  (and  this  is  saying  a  great  deal)  ever  erected  in 
the  eighteenth  century.  Preparations  were,  however, 
being  made  for  rebuilding  it  in  a  better  form ;  and,  as 
the  new  church  was  to  be  rather  larger  than  the  old  one, 
it  was  necessary  to  make  new  foundations  in  the  sur- 
rounding graveyard.  This  disturbed  numbers  of  crosses 
which  marked  the  graves,  and  these  crosses  were  thrown 
all  together  into  a  corner.  The  graves  themselves  had 
to  be  cut  through,  and,  as  the  workmen  simply  dug  the 
new  foundation  without  troubling  themselves  about  the 
bodies,  they  often  cut  them  in  two  ;  so  that  many  a  dead 
man  had  his  legs  amputated,  or  his  head  cut  off,  in  a 
manner  quite  unforeseen  by  his  friends  and  relatives 
when  they  interred  him  near  the  old  church  wall.  The 
writer  witnessed  some  incidents  of  this  kind  which  were 
not  much  to  his  taste ;  and  when  the  new  church  stands 
in  the  glory  of  its  Gothic  arches  and  groined  vault,  and 
windows  of  brilliant  stained  glass,  if  ever  he  visits  the 
place  again  he  will  never  be  able  to  see  the  stately  walls 
of  the  fabric  without  thinking  of  the  mutilated  remains 
on  each  side  of  their  deep  foundations. 

Two  fine  hills  are  visible  from  Etang,  not  mountains, 


296  The  Unknown  River. 

but, true  hills  of  noble  aspect,  with  rocky  heights  and 
deep  ravines.  One  of  these  is  the  Beuvray,  mentioned 
in  the  preceding  chapter  as  the  probable  site  of  Bibracte  ; 
and  exactly  opposite  to  the  Beuvray,  on  the  other  side 
of  the  river,  is  the  hill  of  Uchon,  which  may  not  have 
been  the  site  of  a  Gaulish  place  of  strength,  but  which 
still  carries  on  its  rocky  height  the  tall  fragment  of  a 
mediaeval  castle,  once  of  considerable  extent.  I  deter- 
mined to  explore  this  hill  in  detail,  and  gave  a  whole 
day  to  it,  with  two  guides,  —  a  village  schoolmaster,  who 
kindly  offered  his  services,  and  a  fine  boy  who  was  one 
of  his  best  scholars.  The  first  thing  to  be  seen  was  a 
rocking-stone,  a  natural  curiosity  of  sufficiently  frequent 
occurrence  to  need  little  description  here.  This  stone, 
commonly  called  '  La  Pierre  qui  croule,'  or  by  abbrevia- 
tion '  La  pierre  croule,'  is  nearly  at  the  crest  of  the  hill, 
in  a  large  wood.  Without  the  help  of  my  guide  I  could 
not  possibly  have  found  it.  As  in  the  case  of  other 
rocking-stones,  many  attempts  to  remove  it  from  its 
pivot  have  been  made  by  stupid  peasants,  who  have 
harnessed  oxen  to  it  with  ropes  ;  but  the  stone,  which 
weighs  nearly  thirty  tons,  has  always  resisted  all  such 
attempts  to  deprive  it  of  its  "peculiar  virtue  and  pre- 
eminence. When  set  in  motion,  its  movement  is  so 
regular  and  sure  that  it  cracks  nuts  without  injuring  the 
kernel ;  and  as  the  schoolmaster  was  provided  with  nuts 
for  the  occasion,  and  we  had  a  boy  with  us  willing  to 
eat  them,  I  had  the  opportunity  of  verifying  this. 

The  (  Pierre  qui  croule '  is  close  to  a  deep  ravine ;  and 
near  it,  on  the  summit  of  the  hill,  were  many  magnifi- 


An  Etchers  Voyage  of  Discovery.        297 

cent  groups  of  rocks.  Wherever  a  plough  could  be 
driven,  even  on  the  very  summit,  the  land  was  culti- 
vated, and  the  cottages  of  the  peasantry  were  scattered 
amongst  the  rocks  in  the  little  fields.  The  hill  has  an 
industry  of  its  own,  that  of  sabot-making,  due  to  the 
neighborhood  of  the  forest.  I  and  my  companions  called 
at  a  cottage  which  was  a  workshop  of  sabotiers,  and  were 
very  kindly  received.  As  I  was  very  thirsty,  I  begged 
the  sabotiers  to  give  me  a  drink  of  water,  which  one  of 
them  immediately  did,  in  a  perfectly  clean  but  most 
extraordinary  cup,  —  a  new  sabot.  I  had  some  rum  in 
a  flask,  and  offered  a  drink  to  all  present ;  on  which 
the  four  workmen  and  three  visitors  provided  them- 
selves with  sabots,  and,  having  half  filled  them  with 
water,  passed  the  flask  to  flavor  it.  A  little  incident 
occurred  then,  which  amused  and  delighted  me  by  its 
quaintness  and  originality.  It  was  proposed  to  trinquer, 
to  klink,*  and  the  seven  sabots  were  solemnly  struck 
against  each  other  in  token  of  good-fellowship.  They 
were  not  the  most  elegant  of  cups,  and  they  did  not 
ring  very  musically  when  struck  ;  but,  after  drinking 
out  of  glasses  all  one's  life,  it  may  be  an  agreeable  nov- 
elty, for  once,  to  drink  out  of  a  wooden  shoe.f 


*  The  old  Shakspearian  word. 

t  What  added  to  the  fun  was,  that,  in  addition  to  the  schoolmaster 
and  boy,  a  friend  of  mine  accompanied  me,  who  is  a  dignitary  of  Autun 
(not  mentioned  in  the  text  for  that  reason),  and  it  was  highly  comic  to 
see  his  dignity  condescend  to  such  a  drinking-vessel.  Some  time  after- 
wards, an  old  gentleman  who  had  heard  of  this  incident,  but  did  not 
know  the  name  of  my  companion,  told  the  story,  with  the  remark  that 
1  no  eccentricity  could  astonish  one  in  an  Englishman,  but  the  wonder 


298  The  Unknown  River. 

Uchon  is  the  quaintest  little  hill-village  that  I  ever 
met  with  in  my  travels.  Perched  on  the  very  highest 
and  steepest  part  of  the  hill,  not  safely  on  the  summit, 
but  on  the  slope  just  below  it,  the  village  commands  a 
view  of  immense  extent.  There  is  not  a  place  of  equal 
height  for  sixty  miles  before  it,  and  the  eye  ranges  to 
the  illimitable  plain  of  the  Loire.  It  is  just  the  site  for 
a  feudal  castle,  and  accordingly  we  find  the  last  remnant 
of  one,  —  a  tall  fragment  of  wall,  leaning,  like  the  Tower 
of  Pisa,  over  the  narrow  road,  with  a  fine  Gothic  fireplace 
high  up  its  side  where  the  floor  once  was,  and  where 
the  lady  sat  in  her  lofty  chamber,  and  looked  out  on  the 
world  below.  The  most  curious  thing  at  Uchon  is  the 
church,  which  simply  follows  the  slope  of  the  ground, 
the  floor  in  the  interior  being  as  steep  as  the  hill-side 
on  which  the  edifice  is  built.  As  the  altar  is  at  the 
higher  end,  the  effect  produced  is  really  fine,  and  might 
be  worth  imitating  artificially. 

The  walk  was  enlivened  by  a  continual  conversation 
with  the  school-master,  who  was  even  more  intelligent 
than  his  usually  intelligent  class.  Amongst  other  inter- 
esting things,  he  mentioned  several  words  which,  so  far 
as  he  had  been  able  to  ascertain,  were  peculiar  to  the 
place.  Two  of  these  were  especially  interesting,  —  the 
verb  doulery  to  suffer  (Lat.  dolere),  and  the  substantive 
vialet,  a  foot-path  (diminutive  of  via). 

The  writer,  in  his  descent  of  the  mountain,  was  in 

was  how  Mr.  Hamerton  could  find  a  Frenchman  to  share  his  freaks.' 
'That  Frenchman,'  replied  the  dignitary  above  mentioned,  who  happeaed 
to  be  present,  '  was  myself.' 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.        299 

that  state  of  excitement  peculiar  to  landscape-painters 
when  they  find  themselves  in  a  place  full  of  good  mate- 
rial for  study.  The  foregrounds  were  excellent,  espe- 
cially the  magnificent  old  trees,  and  the  groups  of  oxen 
and  peasants  in  the  steep  little  fields  composed  in  a 
charmingly  accidental  way.  The  worst  of  it  was,  that, 
being  anxious  to  resume  my  voyage,  I  had  not  time  to 
etch  upon  the  mountain ;  and  the  next  etching  I  did  was 
at  noon  on  the  following  day,  when  I  had  landed  in  a 
quiet  place  for  lunch,  and  the  canoe  lay  idly  on  the 
water. 


3CO  The  Unknown  River. 


AFTER  VII. 


THE  river  now  flowed  through  very  majestic  sylvan 
scenery,  equal  in  some  places  to  the  finest  parts 
of  the  Thames,  and  curiously  destitute  of  every  thing 
that  we  in  England  are  accustomed  to  consider  especi- 
ally French  in  character.  The  banks  were  often  rocky, 
and  the  foregrounds  rich  in  heather  and  fern,  with  im- 
mense quantities  of  broom.  Out  of  this  rose  gigantic 
oaks,  that  would  have  done  credit  to  any  park  in  Eng- 
land. Here  is  a  sketch  of  the  trunk  of  one  which  I 
found  to  be  fifty  feet  in  circumference. 

This  noble  tree  was  in  every  respect  one  of  the  most 
perfectly  and  equally  developed  I  ever  met  with.  Suf- 
ficiently isolated  for  its  growth  not  to  be  in  the  least 
interfered  with,  and  yet  at  the  same  time  not  too  much 
exposed  to  any  prevailing  wind,  its  massive  column  rose 
straight  upwards,  and  its  enormous  branches  (themselves 
equal  to  considerable  trees)  spread  equally  in  every 
direction.  I  have  only  given  the  trunk  here  because 
the  attempt  to  represent  the  whole  tree  always  failed  to 
give  any  notion  of  its  vast  dimensions.  Its  crown  of 
foliage,  too  perfect  and  too  regular  to  be  picturesque, 
was  like.  a  sylvan  world  erected  on  a  pedestal.  At  some 
distance  the  tree  did  not  strike  one  as  being  particularly 
big,  probably  on  account  of  its  beautiful  proportions, 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.        301 

and  the  not  inconsiderable  size  of  its  neighbors;  but 
once  under  the  shade  of  the  great  branches,  the  specta- 
tor suddenly  becomes  aware  of  the  weight  and  size  of  the 
enormous  limbs,  and  then  makes  deductions  concerning 
the  strength  of  the  trunk  that  can  support  them.  The 
impression  is  completed  by  making  the  tour  of  the  trunk. 
The  whole  tree  is  perfectly  sound,  and  neither  lightning 
nor  human  hand  has  ever  lopped  off  one  branch. 

An  impression  prevails  in  England  that  the  French 
are  indifferent  to  sylvan  beauty,  probably  because  wood 
is  their  principal  fuel,  and  therefore  an  immense  destruc- 
tion of  young  trees  takes  place  yearly  in  the  forests, 
whilst  the  peasants  amputate  the  arms  of  the  older  ones. 
They  often,  however,  preserve  fine  timber  for  ornament 
as  we  do;  and  I  learned  without  surprise  that  the  fine 
oaks,  of  which  the  giant  just  described  was  the  chief  and 
king,  enjoyed,  in  consequence  of  a  decree  of  the  owner 
of  the  soil,  absolute  immunity  from  the  axe.  Many  trees 
in  the  same  neighborhood,  especially  the  old  chestnuts, 
must  count  their  age  by  centuries  ;  and  the  beeches  that 
crest  the  Beuvray,  though  not  finely  developed,  owing 
to  the  altitude  of  their  situation,  give  every  evidence  of 
antiquity.  The  park  of  Monjeu,  an  estate  belonging  to 
the  Talleyrand  family,  near  Autun,  is  full  of  magnificent 
timber  even  yet,  though  much  was  destroyed  by  the 
imprudence  of  a  man  of  business,  who,  in  the  owner's 
absence,  sold  it  to  a  contractor.  The  haste  with  which 
this  unfortunate  contract  was  annulled,  at  a  heavy  loss, 
so  soon  as  M.  de  Talleyrand  became  aware  of  what 
had  been  done,  is  a  proof  that  he  valued  the  timber 


302  The  Unknown  River. 

for  something  more  than  its  mere  salableness.  But  the 
best  evidence  that  the  French  are  not  indifferent  to  the 
beauty  of  their  trees  is,  that  scarcely  a  single  town, 
however  insignificant,  is  without  its  public  avenues,  in 
which  the  trees  are  encouraged  to  attain  their  fullest 
possible  development.  What  English  town,  of  equal 
population,  has  any  thing  comparable  to  the  magnificent 
avenues  that  encircle  Sens  ? 

The  navigation  during  this  part  of  the  voyage  was 
more  agreeable  to  the  traveller  himself  than  likely  to 
prove  interesting  when  narrated.  Here  and  there  the 
rocky  bed  of  the  stream  produced  narrow  passes  of  a 
trifling  degree  of  difficulty,  and  after  them  the  river 
widened  into  long  and  tranquil  reaches,  over  which 
drooped  the  heavy-leaved  branches,  dipping  their  ex- 
tremities in  the  deep  water  that  reflected  them.  At 
length,  when  these  were  gilded  by  the  refulgence  of 
sunset,  the  sound  of  a  mill-wheel  became  audible  in  the 
distance,  and  that  pleasant  rush  of  water  that  may  indi- 
cate either  a  rapid  or  a  weir.  Then  a  village  church 
came  into  sight,  and  finally  a  few  roofs  of  picturesque 
mossy  thatch,  which  turned  out  to  be  the  whole  village. 

The  church  was  one  of  those  simple  old  Romanesque 
edifices  which  abound  in  this  part  of  France.  The 
architects  of  to-day  have  broken  with  the  Romanesque 
tradition,  and,  in  order  to  get  more  imposing  effects  of 
height  and  size,  have  adopted  a  very  plain  kind  of 
lancet-Gothic.  But  for  a  little  village  church  I  think 
nothing  can  be  so  well  adapted  as  the  Romanesque, 
with  its  tiny  apse  and  aisles,  and  its  general  air  of  snug- 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.       303 

ness,  completion,  and  solidity  on  a  most  unpretendingly 
small  scale.  A  little  Romanesque  church  never  seems 
to  need  any  thing  more ;  but  a  very  plain,  tall,  lanky, 
modern,  Gothic  church,  with  its  invariable  gawky  tower 
at  the  west  end,  looks  hungry  and  uncomfortable,  as  if 
the  architect  had  been  pinched  in  his  financial  condi- 
tions, which  he  very  generally  is,  and  at  the  same  time 
obliged  to  give  as  many  square  yards  of  wall  as  possible 
for  the  money.* 

The  church  of  this  little  village  of  St.  Nizier  had  been 
closed  at  the  Revolution,  and  never  opened  since.  The 
inside  was  full  of  straw,  and  my  canine  companion  rolled 
his  wet  hide  upon  it  in  a  manner  which  appeared  to 
indicate  that  he  would  consider  it  very  eligible  bedding 
if  we  stayed  all  night  there.  Seeing  no  sign  of  any 
thing  like  an  inn  amongst  the  half-dozen  cottages  which 
constituted  the  whole  burgh,  I  felt  greatly  inclined  to 
accept  the  dog's  suggestion ;  but,  although  the  church 
was  an  ample  and  sufficiently  comfortable  bedroom,  one 
could  not  hope  to  find  any  dinner  there,  and  I  looked 
about  the  small  cottages  if  haply  there  might  dwell 
therein  some  man  or  woman  skilled  in  the  preparation 
of  food.  Now  a  certain  observant  villager,  seeing  me 
thus  in  quest  of  something  which  I  had  not  found,  came 

*  One  of  these  churches  was  erected  lately  in  a  certain  commune, 
and  when  the  plans  had  been  made  I  asked  the  priest  what  sort  of 
architecture  had  been  determined  upon ;  but  neither  the  priest,  nor  the 
moire,  nor  any  other  notable  of  the  place,  could  tell  me,  the  fact  being 
that,  though  the  plans  had  been  presented  for  their  august  approval 
and  honored  therewith,  they  did  not  know  the  difference  between  one 
sort  of  architecture  and  another. 


304  The  Unknown  River. 

with  much  courtesy  and  proffered  me  his  services  ;  and 
it  turned  out  that  this  villager  was  in  a  position  to  be 
particularly  useful  to  a  traveller,  for  he  was  at  the  same 
time  innkeeper  and  mayor,  a  man  capable  at  once  of 
nourishing  the  stranger,  and  casting  over  him  the  aegis 
of  political  protection.  He  lived  in  a  small  cottage 
whose  worst  defect,  in  my  view,  was  that  of  being  alarm- 
ingly damp.  It  had  been  submerged  in  a  great  flood 
which  had  happened  a  few  weeks  before,  and  the  walls 
were  still  full  of  moisture  that  oozed  out  from  the  plaster 
on  every  side.  However,  here  I  stayed  two  nights,  and 
contended  against  the  damp  by  means  of  a  blazing  fire 
and  warm  bedding.  The  place  was  rather  amusing,  foi 
the  inn  was  at  the  same  time  the  village  shop,  and  my 
bed  was  in  the  shop  itself ;  so  I  had  ample  opportunities 
for  studying  the  inhabitants  of  the  place.  As  all  the 
villagers  went  to  bed  about  sunset  they  did  not  disturb 
my  privacy  in  the  evening ;  but  they  began  their  shop- 
ping at  such  an  uncommonly  early  hour  in  the  morning, 
that  it  was  rather  a  perplexing  matter  how  and  when  to 
go  through  the  business  of  dressing.  The  most  amusing 
plan  seemed  to  be  to  lie  quietly  in  bed  and  watch  them  ; 
but  this,  though  agreeable  to  a  sluggardly  mind,  did  not 
especially  advance  my  own  projects.  One  thing  struck 
me  very  much,  and  that  was  the  total  absence  of  any 
visible  stock-in-trade  ;  yet  notwithstanding  this  apparent 
deficiency  every  article  in  demand  always  came  forth  at 
once. 

The  innkeeper  was  a  man  of  some  culture,  and  both 
could  and  did  read,  which  is  more  than  can  be  said  oi 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.        305 

most  French  villagers  of  his  class.  I  found  books  in 
his  house  which  interested  me  exceedingly,  especially 
'  Charton's  History  of  France,'  which  is  carefully  illus- 
trated from  authentic  memorials  of  preceding  centuries, 
not  with  fancy  compositions  invented  by  some  artist  of 
our  own.  My  host  was  doing  what  he  could  to  increase 
the  free  library  in  the  village,  already  considerable 
enough  to  be  a  great  treasury  for  a  poor  student.  He 
took  me  to  see  it,  and  I  certainly  had  not  expected  to 
find  a  library  in  a  place  where  there  was  not  a  tiled  roof, 
nor  even  a  priest. 

Every  one  who  has  travelled  (unless  he  be  a  down- 
right gourmand)  will  probably  have  remarked,  that  it  is 
not  the  places  where  we  have  fared  most  luxuriously, 
which  usually  leave  the  most  agreeable  impression  upon 
the  mind.  At  the  fine  places  we  expect  too  much,  I 
think,  and  are  almost  always  either  disappointed  or 
within  a  very  little  of  being  so.  I  have  heard  a  whole 
carriage  full  of  men  do  nothing  but  grumble  and  swear 
as  they  drove  home  after  a  most  extravagant  Greenwich 
feast,  and  I  have  seen  the  same  men  quite  happy  and 
contented  with  a  slice  of  beef  and  potatoes.  In  this 
latter  frame  of  mind,  which  expects  nothing,  and  is 
always  satisfied  with  what  fortune  sends,  did  the  present 
writer  stay  his  two  nights  at  St.  Nizier ;  and  he  left  it 
with  a  pleasing  impression,  as  he  walked  down,  paddle 
in  hand,  towards  the  rocky  shore,  his  canoe  being  borne 
with  great  ceremony  behind  him  by  the  mayor  him- 
self and  one  of  the  most  active  and  influential  mem- 
bers of  the  Common  Council.  Nevertheless,  it  may  be 


20 


306  The  Unknown  River. 

acknowledged  that  the  beautiful  scenery  lower  down  the 
river  was  not  a  whit  the  less  attractive  for  the  fact,  that 
a  renowned  French  cook  kept  an  hotel  somewhere  in 
those  more  favored  regions,  —  an  hotel  where  a  man 
might  not  only  eat,  but  dine. 


An  Etcher  s  Voyage  of  Discovery.        307 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

AFTER  St.  Nizier  the  river  became  even  more  pic- 
turesque as  it  proceeded.  Rushing  swiftly  and 
merrily  between  willowy  islets  it  carried  the  traveller 
along  with  very  little  consideration  for  his  private  tastes 
and  preferences.  The  only  possible  exercise  of  choice 
was  at  the  moment  of  selecting  the  channel ;  after  that, 
retreat  was  simply  out  of  the  question,  and  all  that  could 
be  done  was  to  keep  as  clear  of  accident  as  might  be. 
A  river  voyage  has  been  compared  over  and  over  again 
to  the  course  of  human  life,  and  no  wonder,  for  the 
simile  holds  good  in  the  minutest  details,  especially  in 
such  a  voyage  as  this.  How  very  important,  for  exam- 
ple, and  at  the  same  time  •  how  very  difficult,  it  is  to 
choose  the  right  channel  when  several  lie  before  you  of 
which  you  are  about  equally  ignorant !  If  you  have 
made  a  mistake,  if  you  have  chosen  the  wrong  profession 
or  the  wrong  wife,  then  there  is  nothing  for  it  but  to  try 
to  get  along  as  safely  and  creditably  as  you  can,  and 
avoid  an  upset  if  possible.  If  the  mistake  has  been  made 
it  cannot  be  unmade,  but  skill  and  courage  may  still  often 
save  a  man  from  its  most  disagreeable  consequences. 
There  are  lives  which  must  be  as  easy  as  it  would  be  to 
paddle  down  the  broad  Loire  with  the  ordnance  map  in 
your  pocket,  which  shows  the  safest  way  everywhere ; 
but  these  existences  lose  in  interest  what  they  gain  in 


308  The  Unknown  River. 

safety :  and  the  most  interesting  life  to  live,  like  the  best 
river  to  explore,  is  one  in  which  the  course  is  not  known 
in  detail  beforehand,  but  constantly  calls  for  the  exercise 
of  skill  and  judgment,  and  is  even  to  some  degree 
affected  also  by  pure  hazard. 

The  tiny  hamlets  on  the  shores  of  the  river  were  often 
very  beautiful  in  their  way,  or,  at  least,  very  picturesque, 
and  quite  unspoiled  by  any  modern  perfections  and  reg- 
ularities of  brickwork  or  of  roof.  Many  of  the  best  of 
these  hamlets  are  of  great  antiquity.  I  know  one  where 
the  cottages  have  not  received  any  important  addition, 
and  have  not  been  repaired  in  any  other  sense  than  that 
of  simply  replacing  parts  as  they  decayed,  for  the  last 
four  or  five  hundred  years.  And  the  life  in  them  has 
followed  the  same  unswerving  tradition.  The  language, 
the  religion,  the  customs,  of  the 'inhabitants  remain  al- 
most precisely  what  they  were  in  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
oxen  are  yoked  to  the  char  as  they  were  centuries  ago  ; 
the  char  itself  is  a  precise  copy  of  that  used  by  remote 
ancestors  ;  the  ploughs  and  other  implements  of  agri- 
culture are  untouched  by  modern  improvement.  We 
know  little  of  the  lives  that  are  led  in  these  out-of-the- 
way  cottages  and  hamlets,  because  it  is  so  difficult  for 
us  to  get  rid  of  London  and  Paris,  of  literature  and  sci- 
ence, and  modern  thought  and  reflection  ;  so  difficult 
to  realize  what  a  life  must  be  which  neither  London  nor 
Paris  influences  in  any  perceptible  way  whatever  ;  a  life 
quite  beyond  the  range  of  literature,  inaccessible  even 
to  the  cheapest  of  cheap  newspapers,  ignorant  of  every 
thing  which  makes  us  men  of  the  nineteenth  century 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.       309 

instead  of  the  fifteenth  or  the  tenth.  This  simple  patri- 
archal existence  will  not,  however,  endure  very  much 
longer ;  the  light  of  modernism  is  breaking  in  upon  it 
already  here  and  there,  through  chinks  in  its  ancient 
walls.  It  is  difficult  to  find  a  place  which  is  forty  miles 
from  a  railway,  and  the  railway  brings  its  influences  wiU 
it.  A  youth  leaves  the  parental  cottage  for  some  distant 
place,  and  when  he  comes  back  gives  his  parents  some 
rude  notions  of  geography.  The  region  through  which 
flows  '  the  Unknown  River '  is  so  near  to  the  Alps  that 
their  white  crests  may  be  seen  occasionally  from  the 
summits  of  these  hills  ;  yet  the  peasants  are  not  aware 
that  the  Alps  exist.  Once,  however,  a  young  man  went 
to  work  at  Grenoble,  and  he  came  back  and  told  the 
people  in  his  village  that  there  were  high  mountains  on 
which  the  snow  never  melted,  even  in  the  heats  of  sum- 
mer. This  is  the  way  a  little  knowledge  comes  to  them ; 
it  comes  personally,  by  oral  communication,  not  by 
books.  A  soldier  comes  back  from  Mexico,  and  tells 
them  that  Mexico  is  beyond  the  sea.  I  was  greatly 
astonished  at  the  little  hamlet,  here  faithfully  repre- 
sented, to  hear  a  man  of  saddened  aspect  speak  of 
Boston.  'What  Boston?.'  I  asked,  wondering  how  he 
should  know  of  any  Boston  unless  there  were  such  a 
place  quite  near  to  him  in  France.  *  It  is  of  Boston 
in  the  United  States  of  America,  that  I  am  speaking, 
sir/  answered  the  man  of  the  sad  countenance,  aston- 
ishing me  more  and  more,  for  what  French  peasant 
knows  that  the  United  States  exist,  or  the  Atlantic 
Ocean  either  ?  So  then  he  told  me  his  tale,  and  as  it 


310  The  Unknown  River. 

is  both  a  pretty  tale  and  a  true  one,  I  repeat  it  here  for 
the  reader. 

It  is  simple  and  short  enough.  He  and  his  wife  were 
very  poor  indeed,  almost  destitute,  and  so,  though  they 
loved  each  other  much,  she  went  out  as  a  nurse  to  Paris. 
In  Paris  she  entered  the  service  of  some  rich  Americans, 
who,  when  they  returned  to  their  own  country,  offered 
her  terms  so  tempting  that  she  crossed  the  Atlantic  with 
them.  Year  after  year  she  sent  her  earnings  to  her  hus- 
band, and  year  after  year  he  laid  by  the  hard-won  gold 
until  there  was  enough  of  it  to  buy  the  cottage  he  lived 
in,  and  a  little  field  or  two  ;  enough  to  keep  them  in  inde- 
pendence all  their  lives.  He  took  me  into  the  cottage, 
arid  showed  me  his  wife's  portrait  (blessings  on  photog- 
raphy, that  enables  a  poor  man  to  have  a  portrait  of  the 
absent  or  the  dead !)  and  kissed  it  tenderly  in  my  pres- 
ence, and  said  how  hard  the  long  separation  was,  and 
how  he  looked  for  her  return.  As  he  said  this  the  tears 
ran  down  his  cheeks,  and  he  showed  me  the  bright  good 
walnut  furniture  in  the  cottage,  and  the  fields  by  the 
river  side,  and  said  that  all  this  comfort  was  her  doing, 
all  this  wealth  her  winning.  She  had  learned  to  write 
on  purpose  that  she  might  write  to  him,  and  month  after 
month  her  kindly  letters  came,  cheering  him  under  the 
long  trial  of  her  absence.  It  was  four  years  since  she 
had  left  the  cottage,  and  for  these  four  lonely  years  the 
father  had  been  like  a  widower,  and  the  children  had 
grown  around  him.  And  now  the  months  went  ever 
more  and  more  slowly,  as  it  seemed,  when  he  wanted 
them  to  go  faster,  for  this  very  autumn  she  was  to  sail 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.       311 

and  come  to  enjoy  the  peace  she  had  created.  May  the 
ship  that  brings  her  paddle  prosperously  across  the  wide 
Atlantic,  and  the  good  woman  find  her  way  in  safety  to 
her  own  cottage,  and  to  the  loyal  heart  that  yearns  and 
waits  for  her  so  wearily ! 

'Fair  stands  her  cottage  in  its  place  • 

Where  yon  broad  water  sweetly,  slowly  glides  ; 
It  sees  itself  from  thatch  to  base 
Dream  in  the  sliding  tides.' 

The  character  of  the  river  became  more  and  more 
strikingly  picturesque  as  it  advanced  towards  the  Loire. 
Promontories  of  rock  jutted  into  the  stream,  which  took 
sharp  curves  under  steep  and  richly  wooded  banks,  and 
went  to  sleep  in  out-of-the-way  corners,  where  it  made 
wonderfully  perfect  and  tranquil  harbors  for  the  canoe. 
Sometimes  there  would  be  a  ruin  on  some  height,  which 
though  on  a  small  scale  was  not  without  grandeur,  and 
afterwards  the  rich  meadows  and  woods  descended  to  the 
level  of  the  water.  Then  came  a  long  decline  where  the 
water  rushed  over  a  thousand  dangerous  crests  of  rock, 
and  after  that  a  pool  so  long  and  sleepy  and  quiet  that 
it  seemed  as  if  the  river  had  finally  made  up  its  mind 
not  to  flow  any  more,  but  to  lie  for  ever  in  that  place 
like  a  fish-pond.  However,  when  it  did  awake  and  start 
again,  it  started  with  such  freshness  and  energy  that  the 
interval  of  rest  had  evidently  done  it  good,  and  it  went 
gambolling  amongst  the  rocks  in  a  manner  which,  if  not 
absolutely  alarming  to  the  canoist  (one  never  confesses 
to  feelings  of  serious  alarm)  did  at  least  call  for  the  best 
exercise  of  his  skill. 

In  this  manner  we  came  to  one  of  the  very  loveliest 


312  The  Unknown  River. 

places  I  ever  saw  in  the  course  of  all  my  wanderings,  a 
place  where  a  rich  avenue  came  down  to  the  water's 
edge.  I  left  the  canoe  and  walked  up  between  the 
stately  trees.  When  the  long  avenue  came  to  an  end 
I  found  myself  in  a  noble  demesne  with  a  little  lake, 
and  an  island  in  the  middle  of  it.  On  that  island  once 
stood  a  noble  feudal  castle,  where  royal  guests  have  been 
entertained ;  and  the  castle  lasted,  in  all  its  strength,  till 
the  last  century,  when  a  great  fire  gutted  it  from  roof 
to  basement.  It  would  have  been  a  noble  ruin,  but  the 
marquis,  its  proprietor,  in  sheer  anger  at  the  accident, 
utterly  effaced  every  vestige  of  the  stronghold  of  his 
ancestors  ;  so  that  literally  not  one  stone  remains  upon 
another.  An  exquisite  old  gateway,  of  the  loveliest 
Renaissance  work,  with  sculpture  as  delicate  as  that 
of  Melrose,  has  been  re -erected  at  a  little  distance  by 
the  present  owner,  who  inhabits  a  simple  modern  house. 
He  intends  to  build  a  new  castle  more  worthy  of  his  an- 
cient name  ;  but  an  ancestral  mansion,  once  destroyed, 
can  never  be  replaced.  Even  an  ancient  avenue  may 
be  replaced  in  time  :  young  trees  will  grow  old,  and  they 
succeed  each  other  naturally  in  generations  ;  but  the  real 
feudal  castle  is  one  of  those  things  that  neither  man  nor 
Nature  restores  when  once  it  is  destroyed  and  lost.  We 
may  build  an  imitation  of  it,  but  not  the  thing  itself ;  the 
spirit  that  created  it  has  departed,  never  to  return. 
There  was  something  terribly  childish  in  the  anger  of 
that  old  marquis  !  The  flames  had  destroyed  the  wood- 
work ;  and  so,  in  a  pet,  he  finished  what  they  could  not 
achieve,  and  levelled  all  his  towers  ! 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.       313 


CHAPTER  IX. 

A  CERTAIN  critic  in  the  '  Athenseum '  has  lately 
Ji\.  accused  the  author  of  this  little  narrative*  of 
'intense  egotism;'  and  not  very  long  since  somebody 
complained  that  he  talked  too  much  about  his  dog. 
Now,  in  the  present  chapter,  if  the  story  of  the  voyage 
is  to  be  faithfully  narrated,  there  ought  to  be  a  thrilling 
account  of  a  perilous  and  extraordinary  shipwreck  ;  but 
if  the  writer  is  neither  to  talk  about  himself,  nor  his  dog, 
nor  any  thing  that  is  his,  how  is  he  to  tell  the  tale  ? 
The  truth  is,  that  if  you  listen  to  critics  you  will  never 
publish  any  thing.  One  critic  dislikes  the  egotistic  bits, 
another  hates  all  landscape  descriptions,  another  cannot 
endure  any  allusion  to  past  history,  another  feels  bored 
by  any  thing  resembling  philosophical  reflection,  a  fifth 
scorns  the  repeater  of  an  anecdote,  and  so  on ;  till,  if 
you  try  to  please  them  all,  simple  abstinence  from  writ- 
ing is  the  only  thing  possible  for  you.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  you  eliminate  one  of  these  elements  in  order  to 
please  one  critic,  the  others  immediately  complain  that 
it  is  wanting.  It  is  a  fact,  that  a  very  eminent  publisher 
complained  to  me  a  little  while  since  that  there  was  not 
enough  about  myself  in  a  MS.  I  sent  him,  and  too  much 
about  Julius  Caesar  and  the  Gaulish  System  of  fortifica- 

*  These  chapters  were  first  published  in  the  Portfolio;  an  Artiste 
Periodical. 


314  The  Unknown  River. 

tion.  Now  it  so  happens  that  the  present  chapter  might 
be  dedicated  plausibly  enough  to  Julius  Caesar,  for  he 
crossed  the  Arroux  at  this  very  place  in  his  chase  after 
the  Swiss ;  and  no  doubt  it  would  be  more  modest,  and 
more  scholarly,  to  give  a  learned  little  dissertation  on 
that  event  than  an  account  of  my  own  shipwreck.  The 
only  objection  is,  that  most  readers  would  skip  the  spec- 
ulations about  Caesar. 

It  was  already  rather  late  in  the  evening,  and  I  was 
sketching  by  the  river-side  at  Laboulaye,  and  smoking 
the  pipe  of  consolation.  The  high-road  passes  not  far 
from  the  river  at  that  place,  and  my  dog-friend,  hearing 
the  sound  of  wheels,  went  to  see  what  sort  of  a  carriage 
was  passing  by.  Soon  after  the  carriage  stopped,  and  I 
heard  the  sort  of  bark  which  a  dog  gives  when  he  meets 
an  old  friend,  —  a  bark  of  joyous  congratulation. 

It  was  a  fat  doctor  of  my  acquaintance,  who  was 
driving  towards  Toulon-sur-Arroux  in  the  cool  of  the 
evening.  It  is  his  nature  to  be  sociable,  and  he  is  a  hater 
of  solitude.  He  had  recognized  Tom  at  once,  which  is 
easy  on  account  of  the  dog's  uncommon  size  and  beauty, 
and  so  knew  that  I  could  not  be  far  off.  Then  he  ad- 
mired the  canoe.  —  Would  I  take  a  passenger  ?  He 
would  be  delighted  to  go  with  me  to  Toulon  if  I  would 
give  him  a  berth.  —  Could  he  swim  ?  —  Swim  !  not  in 
the  least,  but  he  would  risk  the  adventure  nevertheless. 
—  Well,  but  then  he  would  most  likely  be  drowned.  — 
He  did  not  care  if  he  were. 

Solitude  is  very  pleasant,  but  students  of  landscape 
get  rather  too  much  of  it  perhaps,  and  at  times  one  will 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.       315 

incur  a  risk  for  the  pleasure  of  a  genial  companion.  So 
it  was  settled  that  the  doctor  should  send  his  servant 
on  to  Toulon  with  his  carriage,  and  that  we  should  see 
how  the  canoe  would  behave  with  both  of  us.  Amongst 
my  stores  I  had  a  waistcoat  containing  India-rubber  air- 
bags,  to  be  worn  whilst  descending  particularly  danger- 
ous rapids;  so  I1  made  the  doctor  put  this  waistcoat  on, 
and  inflated  the  air-bags,  till  he  looked  like  a  pouter 
pigeon.  All  being  ready,  we  got  into  our  places  very 
steadily,  sitting  face  to  face  ;  and  I  took  the  paddle, 
making  my  passenger  promise  to  turn  neither  to  the 
right  hand  nor  to  the  left.  He  quietly  lit  a  cigar,  and 
sat  as  coolly  as  if  he  had  been  on  a  safe  ship  and  a 
deep  and  tranquil  sea. 

The  river  here  was  a  series  of  rapids  and  deep  pools, 
where  the  swirling  water  was  always  trying  to  get  you 
under  the  steep  walls  of  rock.  It  was  necessary  in 
several  places  to  cross  a  rapid  to  avoid  being  caught 
between  great  boulders,  and  we  had  very  near  shaves 
for  it  once  or  twice.  The  coolness  of  the  doctor  all  this 
time  was  admirable  to  behold.  He  smoked  his  cigar  qui- 
etly and  sat  with  perfect  equilibrium,  so  that  I  had  no 
trouble  with  him  of  any  kind  except  for  his  weight, 
which  was  considerable  indeed.  I  praised  his  self-pos- 
session, and  he  answered  that  he  had  perfect  confidence 
in  my  skill.  I  said  I  could  not  promise  to  get  us  through 
such  a  succession  of  dangers  without  an  accident.  '  In 
that  case/  he  replied, '  I  am  satisfied  that  you  will  do  what 
can  be  done,  and  am  content  to  take  the  consequences.' 
'  But,  if  we  capsize,  you  may  be  drowned  in  spite  of  the 


316  The  Unknown  River. 

waistcoat,  —  the  current  is  tremendous.'  '  I'm  not  afraid 
of  death,'  he  answered  with  unfeigned  courage. 

He  had  hardly  spoken  the  words,  when,  in  attempting 
to  cross  the  rapid  to  avoid  an  ugly  piece  of  polished 
granite,  about  the  shape  and  color  of  a  whitened  skull, 
I  found  it  could  not  be  done  without  uncommon  effort, 
and  broke  the  paddle  in  trying.  Of  course,  after  that, 
the  upset  was  inevitable.  The  doctor  did  not  stir,  but 
smoked  tranquilly  still,  not  uttering  a  single  word ;  the 
canoe  was  carried  against  the  granite,  broadside  on.  She 
rose  upon  it  a  foot  or  two,  then  slipped  to  the  right  a 
little,  the  stern  dipped,  the  water  clasped  me  round  the 
waist  and  filled  the  well,  and  she  (slowly  as  it  seemed) 
capsized.  Just  as  she  went  over,  but  not  before,  I  saw 
the  doctor  throw  away  his  cigar.  Once  in  the  water  I 
found  myself  hurried  along  irresistibly,  but  soon  got  my 
head  clear,  and  hoped,  by  surface  swimming,  to  escape 
contusions  on  the  knees.  In  this  way  I  got  down  the 
rapid  quite  safely,  and  was  hurled  at  last  into  a  deep 
pool,  where,  after  the  first  plunge,  I  felt  comparatively  at 
ease.  Finding  it  impossible  to  land  on  the  rocky  side,  I 
allowed  myself  to  float  into  an  eddy,  and  was  quietly  car- 
ried out  of  the  central  current  into  a  sort  of  tiny  haven 
or  bay,  where  I  landed. 

It  then  became  necessary  to  think  about  the  doctor. 
He  was  not  far  behind.  Like  myself  he  had  been  car- 
ried down  the  rapid,  and  was  now  bobbing  about  in  the 
great  pool,  thanks  to  the  inflated  waistcoat.  But  he  had 
not  the  slightest  notion  about  directing  himself,  and  had 
got  into  a  cercle  vicieux,  in  a  whirlpool  that  turned  him 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.       317 

round  and  round.  Seeing  that  he  would  probably  be 
carried  out  of  the  pool  into  some  other  rapid,  I  thought 
it  time  to  set  about  saving  him,  and  called  out  that  he 
was  not  to  grasp  me,  but  simply  lay  his  hands  on  my 
shoulders.  When  I  approached  him  in  the  water  (rather 
cautiously  at  first),  he  behaved  with  the  same  coolness 
he  had  displayed  in  the  canoe.  He  laid  a  hand  on  each 
shoulder  so  lightly  that  I  hardly  felt  it,  and  I  towed  him 
easily  into  port. 

He  began  by  expressing  polite  regrets  ;  but  these  were 
interrupted  by  the  arrival  of  the  canoe,  bottom  upwards, 
and  many  articles  that  had  been  in  her.  There  was  the 
box  of  etchings,  which  I  swam  for  first,  and  many  another 
thing.  Luckily,  I  secured  the  canteen,  and  the  doctor 
prescribed  brandy  for  both  of  us.  After  that,  we  hauled 
the  canoe  under  the  copse,  and  left  it. 

After  walking  about  half  an  hour  through  a  dense 
wood  and  over  very  rough  and  broken  ground,  we  came 
to  the  river  again,  where  it  spread  itself  into  a  little  lake, 
and  at  the  lower  end  of  the  lake  there  was  a  weir  and  a 
mill.  We  looked  miserable  creatures,  both  of  us.  We 
had  lost  our  hats,  and  the  miller's  wife  took  us  for 
beggars.  But  the  doctor  entered  exactly  as  if  the 
place  belonged  to  him,  and  declared  that  we  must  have 
a  change  of  raiment.  Now,  considering  that  we  were 
constructed  by  Nature  on  totally  opposite  principles  — 
resembling  each  other  as  the  Tower  of  London  resem- 
bles the  Clock-tower  at  Westminster  —  it  is  obvious  that 
the  miller's  clothes  could  not  fit  both  of  us.  When 
we  were  dressed  in  this  disguise,  the  doctor  filled  the 


318  The  Unknown  River. 

miller's  suit  to  overflowing,  and  looked  like  an  overpacked 
carpet-bag,  whereas  the  present  writer  had  the  appear- 
ance of  a  village  school-boy  who  had  suddenly  outgrown 
his  habiliments.  At  first  the  miller's  wife  viewed  us  with 
suspicion,  but  the  doctor  made  himself  so  agreeable  that 
the  cloud  disappeared  from  her  countenance,  and  the 
light  of  it  beamed  upon  us  kindly. 

By  this  time  it  was  dark,  and  our  hostess  took  clean, 
coarse  sheets  out  of  her  polished  presses,  and  laid  them 
on  two  of  the  four  beds  that  were  in  the  room.  But  the 
doctor  wrote  a  few  words  on  a  slip  of  paper,  and  sent  it 
to  Toulon  by  a  little  boy,  and  in  a  while  his  carriage 
came  up  to  the  mill  with  the  boy  in  it,  and  under  cover 
of  night  we  made  our  entry  into  the  town,  stili  in  our 
borrowed  clothes.  The  worthy  innkeeper  was  just 
going  to  bed  when  we  arrived,  but  the  active  little  mar- 
mitons,  in  their  white  jackets  and  caps,  set  to  work  with 
alacrity  at  their  tiny  charcoal  fires  and  shining  copper- 
pans.  And  we  sat  down,  in  our  queer  costume,  to  the 
best  of  suppers,  with  wonderful  appetites  and  joyous 
laughter.  And  so  pleasantly  ended  our  shipwreck  ;  but 
it  might  have  ended  not  so  pleasantly  as  that.  One 
thing  is  certain,  without  the  inflatable  waistcoat  the 
doctor's  patients  would  have  benefited  by  his  advice 
no  more. 

As  this  chapter  has  been  written  from  the  beginning 
in  open  defiance  of  criticism,  I  may  as  well  sin  to  the 
very  end,  and  speak  of  the  faithful  hound  that  followed 
me.  He  needed  no  inflatable  waistcoat,  but  came  danc- 
ing down  the  rapids  like  a  cork,  and  never  left  us.  He 


An  Etchers  Voyage  of  Discovery.       319 

is  the  most  indefatigable  of  swimmers ;  mile  after  mile 
did  he  follow  the  canoe,  like  some  tame,  affectionate 
seal.  And  is  he  not  to  be  mentioned,  —  he,  the  un- 
wearied follower,  the  brave  defender,  the  faithful  com- 
panion and  friend  ?  No  one  dare  approach  the  canoe 
when  he  is  there  ;  and  shall  he  not  sup  with  us  after 
our  shipwreck,  and  be  honorably  mentioned  here  ? 

Ce  qtfil  y  a  de  meilleur  dans  rhomme,  c'est  le  chien. 


320  The  Unknown  River. 


CHAPTER    X. 

THIS  little  etching  gives  a  tolerably  good  notion 
of  the  present  condition  of  those  fortifications 
which,  in  the  middle  ages,  were  the  citadel  of  Toulon- 
sur-Arroux.  The  etching  was  made  some  time  since  ; 
had  it  been  executed  during  the  last  few  weeks,  I  should 
have  run  considerable  risk  of  being  ill-used  as  a  Prus- 
sian spy.  For  it  is  not  safe,  in  this  month  of  Septem- 
ber, 1870,  to  draw  so  much  as  the  wicket-gate  of  a 
cottage  garden  anywhere  in  France,  whether  you  are 
a  Frenchman  or  a  foreigner ;  and,  if  the  latter,  your 
chances  are  so  much  the  worse.  It  had  formed  part  of 
my  plan  to  republish  this  series  of  papers  with  addi- 
tional etchings  on  a  larger  scale,  and  I  began  these 
additional  plates  in  the  month  of  July,  intending  to  re- 
visit the  scenery  of  the  whole  river,  and  select  about  a 
dozen  of  the  finest  subjects.  I  had  done  a  few  of  these 
when  the  great  spy-mania  took  possession  of  all  French 
minds,  at  least  in  the  lower  classes,  and  there  arose  such 
a  hubbub  about  my  doings  over  an  extent  of  country 
thirty  miles  in  diameter,  that  it  would  have  been  abso- 
lute madness  to  let  myself  be  seen  with  any  thing  of 
the  nature  of  drawing  materials  about  me.  So  the 
larger  etchings  were  brought  to  an  abrupt  termination. 
The  reader,  who  is  by  this  time  familiar  with  the  slight 
and  purely  artistic  little  plates  which  have  illustrated 


An  Etchers  Voyage  of  Discovery.       321 

these  chapters,  will  be  amused  at  the  notion  that  they 
can  be  supposed  to  be  of  any  imaginable  utility  to  Von 
Moltke  and  the  Crown  Prince  in  their  brilliant  invasion 
of  France  ;  but  the  peasantry  in  these  parts  have  made 
up  their  ingenious  minds  on  the  subject,  and,  as  to 
arguing  with  them,  one  might  as  well  try  to  argue  with 
a  tribe  of  hostile  savages.  Like  the  country  people  in 
England,  they  confound  drawing  with  surveying,  and 
believe  that  artists  are  men  employed  to  make  maps. 
Who  employs  them  ?  that  is  the  next  question  ;  and  the 
answer,  of  course,  is,  '  The  King  of  Prussia.'  *  When  I 
made  these  little  plates  at  Toulon,  I  was  enjoying  one  of 
the  blessings  and  privileges  of  peace.  He  would  be  a 
bold  man  to-day,  who  would  sit  down  and  draw  a  citadel 
anywhere  in  France,  even  though  it  had  been  disman- 
tled for  the  last  three  hundred  years. 

Here,  again,  is  the  bridge.  If  any  one  drew  that 
bridge  to-day,  it  would  clearly  be  that  the  Prussians 
might  pass  over  it.  But  in  those  happy  times  of  peace 
the  peasants  felt  rather  flattered  that  a  '  map '  should  be 
made  of  their  bridge  ;  and  the  more  knowing  ones  sug- 
gested that,  since  the  present  writer  made  such  good 
maps  of  bridges,  he  would  do  well  to  make  one  of  the 
new  railway-bridge  at  Etang,  which  was  of  iron,  and 
perfectly  straight,  and  had  been  pushed  from  shore  to 

*  In  the  good  old  times,  before  Bismarck  was  heard  of,  travailler  pour 
le  t  oi  de  Prusse  used  to  mean  working  without  any  probability  of  payment. 
In  that  sense,  undoubtedly,  the  present  writer,  like  most  artists,  has 
worked  a  good  deal  for  the  King  of  Prussia.  But  tell  it  not  in  Gath, 
repeat  it  not  in  the  villages  of  Burgundy!  —  a  pleasantry  of  that  kind, 
in  these  times,  might  cost  the  jester's  life. 

21 


322  The  Unknown  River. 

shore  all  in  a  single  piece,  just  as  you  would  put  a  plank 
over  a  rivulet. 

Toulon  is  a  very  quaint  little  town,  with  a  rather  pic- 
turesque market-place  on  a  hill-top,  and  the  streets  slop- 
ing down  on  all  sides  to  the  river  and  the  surrounding 
country.  On  the  top  of  the  hill  is  the  old  citadel,  of 
which  one  tower  serves  for  the  tower  of  the  old  church. 
The  population  of  Toulon  has  diminished  of  late  years, 
but  the  church,  which  used  to  be  considered  quite  large 
enough  for  the  place  (a  quaint  old  Norman-looking 
edifice),  has  not  satisfied  the  ambition  of  the  present 
incumbent,  who  saw  big  churches  rising  in  all  the  neigh- 
boring villages,  and  thought  he  might  as  well  have  a  big 
church  too.  So  he  raised  a  subscription  and  built  one  ; 
but  a  certain  pillar  of  it  was  unfortunately  erected  im- 
mediately over  an  old  well,  and  the  covering  of  the  well 
gave  way,  and  the  pillar  went  down  into  it,  as  a  steel 
ramrod  used  to  go  down  the  barrel  of  a  rifle  before  these 
breech-loading  times. 

In  lonely  travel  the  great  secret  of  avoiding  ennui  is 
to  take  an  interest  in  the  people  as  well  as  the  scenery. 
Any  one  who  is  on  the  look-out  for  characters  is  always 
sure  to  meet  with  them.  For  instance,  I  found  a  doctor 
at  Toulon  who  smoked  without  ceasing  when  he  was 
awake,  except  when  he  laid  down  his  pipe  to  take  his 
knife  and  fork.  He  was  an  old  man,  in  perfect  health, 
and  still  in  full  professional  practice.  This  last  fact  may 
seem  incompatible  with  incessant  smoking,  and  would, 
no  doubt,  be  so  in  London ;  but  in  a  tiny  town  where 
everybody  knew  the  doctor,  he  was  indulged  in  his  habit 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.       323 

by  everybody.  I  spent  a  good  many  hours  with  him, 
and  during  the  whole  time  he  was  doing  one  of  two 
things,  either  smoking  his  pipe  or  filling  it.  He  had 
read  most  of  our  best  authors  in  the  original,  having 
taught  himself  English  alone,  with  the  help  of  nothing 
but  books.  He  had  a  capital  little  English  library  at 
home,  and  had  read  every  volume  in  it :  all  Scott,  all 
Dickens,  all  Shakspeare,  Byron,  and  many  others. 
His  pronunciation  was,  of  course,  as  bad  as  our  pro- 
nunciation of  Latin  ;  and  I  felt,  on  hearing  him  read 
a  little,  as  an  old  Roman  would  feel  if  he  could  go  to 
Oxford  and  hear  the  men  there  deliver  Latin  orations. 
However,  in  this  instance  there  was  nothing  to  laugh 
at,  because  there  was  no  pretension  ;  and  the  doctor 
knew  our  literature  better  than  many  Englishmen  do, 
and  understood  it,  and  loved  it.  He  had  never  heard 
an  English  word  pronounced  by  a  native  before  he  hit 
upon  me,  so  that  I  was  a  real  trouvaille ;  and  he  was 
extremely  kind  to  me,  and  invited  me  to  breakfast,  point- 
ing out  a  charming  harbor  for  the  canoe  at  the  end  of 
his  garden,  as  a  temptation  to  future  voyages. 

But  the  best  character  in  Toulon  was  the  maire  of  the 
place,  Monsieur  B.,  an  artist  of  reputation  in  a  much 
more  useful  line  than  any  etcher.  I  fear  that  no  plate 
of  mine  will  ever  give  Monsieur  B.  half  as  much  pleas- 
ure and  satisfaction  as  the  plats  of  his  cooking  gave  to 
me.  He  keeps  the  h6tel  where  I  stayed,  and  he  made 
me  a  little  portable  deje&ner  to  take  with  me  every  morn- 
ing when  I  set  out  to  work.  French  cookery  is  always 
either  exquisite  or  abominable,  and  his  was  of  the  former. 


324  The  Unknown  River. 

Monsieur  B.  is  a  very  celebrated  man  indeed.  People 
write  from  a  distance  to  order  a  dinner,  and  then  travel 
to  Toulon  to  eat  it.  Unfortunately,  he  is  also  celebrated 
as  the  most  irascible  man  in  the  country  ;  which,  con- 
sidering the  generally  explosive  character  of  French 
tempers,  is  saying  a  good  deal.  As  that  man  must  be  a 
wonderfully  perfect  Sabbatarian  who  can  win  fame  in 
Scotland  for  his  observance  of  the  day  of  rest,  so  that 
Frenchman  must  be  irascible  indeed  who  can  make  him- 
self famous  for  his  irritability.  His  powers  of  voluble 
invective  surpassed  all  that  I  had  ever  heard  in  the  way 
of  scolding,  and  their  effect  was  immensely  enhanced 
by  the  most  scientific  modulation  of  tone.  His  loud 
voice  disturbed  me  in  the  early  morning  as  he  scolded  a 
boy-cook  for  having  used  a  pound  of  first-rate  butter, 
reserved  especially  for  pastry,  in  cooking  yesterday's 
dinner.  Now  the  misapplication  of  the  butter  was 
commented  upon  in  a  restrained  and  subdued  piano, 
with  deep  concentrated  rage  ;  and  now  it  passed  with  a 
rapid  crescendo  to  forte  and  a  terrible  fortissimo,  that 
made  the  very  windows  rattle.  When  a  servant  is  to 
be  reprimanded,  the  first  observations  are  made  in  the 
utmost  moderation,  and  if  only  Monsieur  B.  could  stop 
there,  he  would  deserve  the  credit  of  being  a  reasonable 
though  vigilant  master  ;  but  the  sound  of  his  own  voice 
exasperates  him,  and  even  when  the  culprit  offers  no 
reply,  his  fault  is  described  to  him  over  and  over  again, 
every  time  with  increasing  vehemence,  till  at  length  the 
floodgates  of  invective  are  opened  wide,  and  the  torrent 
rolls  and  roars. 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.        325 

Yet  nothing  can  exceed  Monsieur  B.'s  politeness  to 
hi?  guests.  In  the  midst  of  his  loudest  furies,  he  will 
turn  aside  and  speak  to  you  with  a  serene  countenance 
and  gentle  voice,  whilst  over  the  door  of  the  dining-room 
is  the  inscription  :  — 

'  Rien  ne  doit  d^r  anger  /'  honnfre  homme  qui  dine! 


326  The  Unknown  River. 


CHAPTER    XI. 

THE  admirers  of  beautiful  scenery  are  often  some- 
what narrow,  and  even  bigoted,  in  their  admira- 
tion. It  has  been  the  fashion,  for  the  last  half-century, 
to  enjoy  mountain  scenery  very  much,  and  to  undertake 
long  journeys  in  search  of  it ;  but  the  proof  that  this  love 
of  Nature  is  rather  the  love  of  a  certain  kind  of  exhilara- 
tion, to  be  had  best  in  mountainous  districts,  is  that  most 
people  still  remain  perfectly  indifferent  to  the  beauty  of 
the  plains.  They  can  understand  that  you  have  reason- 
able motives  for  going  to  Switzerland  or  the  Tyrol,  but 
what  can  you  see  to  care  for  on  the  Loire  ?  '  Mere  pop- 
lars, you  know,  and  that  sort  of  thing,'  say  the  few  who 
have  visited  the  river  that  Turner  loved.  Therefore  I 
feel  a  little  apprehensive  that  the  sympathy  of  many 
readers,  which  has  gone  with  me  whilst  I  had  to  speak 
of  rocks  and  .rapids,  and  heathery  hills  purple  in  the 
evening,  may  leave  me  now  that  I  come  to  the  broader 
waters  and  less  romantic  landscapes  of  the  plain. 

And  yet,  when  the  last  rapid  had  been  passed,  and 
the  river  spread  into  sleepy  reaches,  only  occasionally 
interrupted  by  the  gentle  murmur  of  a  safe  and  sandy 
shallow,  over  which  the  canoe  glided  like  a  boat  on 
some  languid  stream  ;  when  the  sun  at  evening,  instead 
of  suddenly  and  prematurely  disappearing  behind  the 
wooded  heights,  sank  slowly  in  the  immensity  of  the 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.       327 

clear  heaven,  till  he  set  on  the  far  horizon  as  he  sets  on 
the  summer  sea,  —  there  came  upon  the  spirit  of  the  voy- 
ager such  a  sense  of  boundless  space  and  free  breathing 
of  balmy,  illimitable  air,  as  he  never  knew  in  the  narrow 
gorges  where  dark  hills  and  dense  woods  overshadowed 
him. 

Every  scene  of  Nature  has  its  own  character,  and  its 
own  charm.  The  plains  have  not  the  sublimities  of  the 
hills,  nor  the  guarded  seclusion  of  the  shaded  valleys, 
and  we  miss  the  weird  shapes  of  the  gray  rocks  that 
breast  the  stream  where  its  flowing  is  strongest ;  yet  it 
is  glorious  to  see  all  the  blue  sky  in  the  daytime,  and  all 
the  stars  at  night.  And  the  river  seems  to  gain  a  cer- 
tain dignity  too,  with  its  assurance  of  perfect  peace.  It 
has  space  for  all  its  waters,  and  knows  restraint  no  more. 
The  graceful  trees  only  adorn  its  borders,  but  do  not 
arrest  its  course.  If  it  winds  in  beautiful  curves,  it  does 
so  from  deliberate  preferences.  It  would  be  easy,  as  it 
seems,  to  go  straight  to  its  distant  bourn,  but  to  go  indi- 
rectly is  yet  a  little  easier ;  so  it  turns  for  its  own  pleas 
ure,  and  visits  here  a  village,  and  there  a  solitary  farm, 
where  the  oxen  stand  knee-deep  in  the  evening. 

The  gradual  growth  of  a  river  might  be  illustrated  by 
drawings  of  its  bridges.  First  you  have  the  trunk  of  a 
single  tree,  rudely  flattened  on  the  upper  side  by  strokes 
of  a  peasant's  axe,  and  supported  by  two  rude  abutments 
of  unhewn  granite  blocks.  A  little  lower  down  the 
stream  has  become  too  wide  for  the  single  trunk  to 
cross  it ;  so  now  you  have  two  trees  that  meet  on  a  rock 
in  the  middle.  After  that  you  come  to  the  first  serious 


328  The  Unknown  River. 

attempt  at  construction  :  a  wooden  bridge  for  foot- 
passengers  only,  the  cattle  and  cart  traffic  still  passing 
through  the  water  in  a  shallow  ford  a  little  below.  Then 
comes  the  first  stone  bridge,  a  single  arch,  if  the  people 
are  rich  enough  to  afford  a  piece  of  accomplished  engi- 
neering ;  but,  if  the  village  masons  have  done  the  work, 
more  usually  two  or  three  tiny  arches,  that  a  stray  cow 
might  possibly  pass  under,  and  which  are  pretty  sure  to 
be  choked  with  water  in  a  flood  which  will  wash  over 
the  rude  parapet.  As  the  river  widens  it  passes  near 
some  town  or  city,  and  then  we  find  the  stately  stone 
bridge  of  careful  masonry  —  three  arches,  perhaps  — 
where  the  high-road  enters  the  town.  After  that  the 
number  of  arches  increases,  till  at  last  you  meet  with 
those  long  and  stately  constructions,  whose  fine  perspec- 
tive attracted  Turner  so  much  when  he  illustrated  the 
rivers  of  France. 

The  accompanying  sketch,  which  represents  the  bridge 
of  Gueugnon,  gives  evidence  that  the  Unknown  River 
has  quite  grown  out  of  the  romantic  and  tumultuous 
period  of  its  existence,  and  become  a  sober  stream  capa- 
ble even  of  rendering  service  to  navigation,  if  it  were 
worth  while  to  deepen  a  few  shallows  here  and  there. 
Indeed,  from  this  bridge  to  the  Loire  the  river  is  classed 
amongst  those  which,  if  not  positively  navigable,  might 
easily  be  made  so. 

Gueugnon  is  rather  an  industrial  place,  as  may  be 
guessed  from  the  smoky  chimneys  in  the  etching,  which 
belong  to  some  ironworks,  where  they  make  wire,  and 
sheet-iron  for  tinning.  Here  the  traveller  found  an  iron 


An  Etchers  Voyage  of  Discovery.       329 

canoe,  flat-bottomed,  and  extremely  even  uncomfortably 
narrow.  She  must  have  been  terribly  crank ;  but  that 
is  a  defect  the  body  accustoms  itself  to  so  easily,  that, 
after  a  fortnight's  practice,  one  sits  in  a  crank  boat  as 
easily  as  in  a  stiff  one.  There  is  usually  a  certain 
amount  of  jealousy  amongst  boat-builders,  and  the  me- 
chanic who  had  made  the  iron  canoe  spoke  very  dispar- 
agingly of  mine,  which  I  took  with  British  coolness; 
merely  inquiring  whether  he  had  .ever  descended  the 
rapids  in  his  invention,  which  was  entirely  without  a 
deck,  and  would  have  certainly  gone  to  the  bottom  like 
a  lump  of  lead  after  half  a  dozen  waves  had  washed 
into  it.  The  crowd  around  us  seemed  to  consider  that 
the  best  proof  of  the  quality  of  my  own  vessel  was  her 
successful  voyage  down  the  wildest  parts  of  the  river. 
After  that,  the  inimical  mechanic  became  suddenly  very 
amiable,  and  conducted  me  over  the  ironworks,  explain- 
ing every  process  most  politely.  The  reason  for  this 
amiability  became  evident  at  last  ;  for  just  as  I  left  him, 
and  thanked  him,  he  proposed  to  build  me  an  iron  canoe 
which  should  be  made  exactly  according  to  my  own 
fancy,  and  have  a  deck,  and  every  thing  I  had  a  mind 
to.  In  a  word,  he  was  a  shipbuilder  (on  a  very  small 
scale)  touting  for  orders.  Had  the  present  writer  been 
a  permanent  resident  at  Gueugnon,  it  would  have  been 
rather  a  tempting  proposal,  as  there  is  no  employment 
in  the  world  more  congenial  to  his  feelings  than  super- 
intending the  construction  of  a  boat. 

There  is  a  great  weir  at  Gueugnon,  which  offers  a 
slope  of  most  excellent  masonry  very  like  a  great  rail- 


330  The  Unknown  River. 

way  embankment,  and  when  the  water  flows  over  it  in 
one  smooth  sheet,  it  would  be  delightful  to  glide  down 
it  in  a  canoe.  Unfortunately,  however,  there  are  rude 
stones  at  the  bottom,  which  would  give  the  adventurer  a 
most  unpleasant  reception.  I  got  amongst  these  stones 
in  the  dark,  and  had  plenty  of  trouble  with  them,  —  the 
last  inconvenience  of  that  kind  in  the  course  of  the 
voyage. 

There  was  a  comfortable  inn  at  Gueugnon  —  well, 
comfortable  is  perhaps  hardly  the  word  for  any  French 
inn  of  that  class  ;  but  these  things  go  by  comparison,  and, 
after  lodging  in  peasants'  cottages  amongst  the  hills,  it 
seemed  quite  stately  and  luxurious  to  sit  at  dinner  in 
the  evening  with  two  candles  in  tall  candlesticks  on  the 
table,  and  an  attentive  waiter  at  one's  elbow. 

The  etching  opposite  shows  the  way  in  which  I  used 
to  have  to  seek  for  a  lodging  when  belated  ;  and  it  was 
always  disagreeable  to  me,  mainly  on  account  of  the 
necessary  yet  almost  impossible  explanations.  How 
can  you  make  a  peasant  understand  your  purposes  in 
an  artistic  excursion  of  any  kind  ?  How,  especially, 
can  you  make  him  understand  such  purposes  when 
complicated  with  the  amusement  of  canoing  ? 

On  a  fine  night  it  was  positively  more  agreeable  to 
sleep  in  the  canoe,  in  the  manner  represented  at  the 
close  of  the  chapter.  Since  then  the  author  has  invent- 
ed much  more  luxurious  arrangements  ;  *  but  it  was  not 

*  This  alludes  to  a  contrivance  by  which  a  hut  and  a  punt  are  united 
in  one  construction.  During  the  day,  the  punt,  which  is  of  wood, 
contains  a  second  punt  of  tinned  iron.  The  iron  punt  is  divided  into 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.        331 

unpleasant  to  make  a  bed  of  rushes,  and  sleep  soundly 
and  softly,  covered  up  to  the  chin  with  waterproofs  to 
guard  one  from  the  dews  of  the  night.  Many  a  poor 
soldier  in  the  present  war,  forced  to  lie  on  the  bare 
ground,  often  stony  and  muddy,  would  consider  these 
contrivances  a  luxury.  It  was  something,  too,  before 
going  to  sleep,  to  look  up  at  the  moonlit  clouds  and  the 
stars  in  the  depths  between  them. 

several  compartments,  in  the  largest  of  which  sits  the  canoist.  All 
the  other  compartments  are  closed.  Two  of  them  are  kept  accessible 
by  movable  lids ;  one  of  these  is  used  for  provisions  and  the  other  for 
clothing.  That  for  provisions  contains  eight  boxes  fitted  to  each  other 
carefully,  in  which  may  be  kept  the  different  requisites  for  a  week's 
voyage,  and  a  complete  cooking  apparatus.  That  for  clothing  con- 
tains a  change  of  dry  clothes,  a  hammock,  &c.,  and  bedding.  When 
night  comes  the  boat  is  drawn  up  on  the  shore,  and  the  tin  punt  re- 
moved from  the  interior  of  the  wooden  one.  Two  light  frames  are 
then  fixed  upright  in  the  wooden  punt,  and  the  tin  one  is  easily  lifted 
upon  these  frames.  A  double  curtain  is  then  fixed  all  round,  and  we 
have  a  hut  with  a  wooden  floor,  a  metallic  roof,  and  canvas  sides.  In 
this  hut  the  hammock  is  easily  suspended. 

This  contrivance  has  been  completely  realized  in  every  detail,  but  I 
have  never  had  an  opportunity  of  using  it,  because,  during  the  sum- 
mer of  1870  there  was  no  water  in  the  rivers,  and  since  the  beginning 
of  the  Prussian  War  it  would  be  madness  to  show  one's  self  in  any  such 
mysterious-looking  invention,  as  it  would  set  all  the  peasants  per- 
fectly mad.  In  times  of  sanity  and  peace  it  seems  to  me  that  nothing 
could  be  better  adapted  for  a  tour  such  as  that  described  in  these 
pages.  It  is  unpleasant  to  have  to  leave  work  undone  in  order  to  go 
five  or  six  miles  lower  down  a  river  to  seek  for  a  lodging.  Many  etch- 
ings were  left  -unfinished  for  that  reason  in  the  excursion  here  narrated, 
and  have  consequently  been  thrown  aside.  Many  subjects  remarkably 
suited  for  etching  had  also  to  be  passed  without  illustration  when  the 
weather  was  not  mild  enough  for  a  bivouac. 


332  The  Unknown  River. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

ON  leaving  Gueugnon,  in  the  cool  of  a  bright  autumn 
evening,  I  saw  a  magnificent  piece  of  black  oak 
which  had  been  disengaged  from  the.  bed  of  the  river 
during  the  great  inundation,  and  thrown  upon  the  high 
shore.  The  whole  trunk  was  complete,  and  measured 
seventy  feet  in  length  by  forty  in  girth.  I  cut  it  in 
several  places  with  a  penknife  and  found  it  as  black  as 
ebony.  How  many  centuries  it  had  lain  in  the  river's 
bed  I  know  not,  but,  judging  from  the  color  and  condi- 
tion of  the  wood,  which  was  all  black  bog-oak  of  the 
finest  quality,  the  tree  must  have  lain  beneath  the  flow- 
ing water  as  long  as  the  black  oak  in  the  deepest  bogs 
of  Ireland.  What  noble  chambers  might  have  been 
furnished  out  of  it !  what  rich  inlaying  of  parquets 
and  wainscot  would  it  not  have  supplied ! 

The  landscape  now  began  to  wear  an  aspect  of  un- 
common sadness  and  desolation.  The  river  divided 
itself  into  many  straggling  currents  in  a  wide  desert 
of  sand  and  pebbles.  A  low,  yellow  precipice  of  the 
same  material  hid  all  the  fields  from  my  sight,  as  I  sat 
low  in  the  canoe  on  the  level  of  the  dreary  gray  water. 
How  mournfully,  too,  the  water  seemed  to  murmur 
down  its  tortuous,  divided  channels  !  For  miles  and 
miles  there  was  nothing  to  be  seen  except  a  great 
chateau  on  the  top  of  a  bare  slope,  a  long,  ugly,  melan- 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.        333 

choly  building,  enough  to  make  one  miserable  to  look  at 
it,  and  think  that  any  one  could  be  condemned  to  live 
in  it. 

When  I  came  near  this  chateau,  the  twilight  was 
already  very  far  advanced,  and  I  landed  to  eat  a  little 
supper.  The  land  was  bare  of  trees,  a  desolate  expanse 
of  uncultivated  soil,  where  a  herd  grazed  in  the  distance. 
Suddenly  I  wondered  not  to  see  Tom  galloping  towards 
me,  as  he  generally  had  done  at  these  improvised  meal- 
times on  the  shore.  I  called  and  whistled  for  him  long 
and  loudly,  but  in  vain,  and  during  all  that  remained  of 
the  voyage  I  saw  his  affectionate  face  no  more.  This 
caused  me  some  anxiety,  and  rather  spoiled  my  pleasure, 
but  I  trusted  that  he  would  find  his  way  home  again. 
On  my  return  I  made  inquiries,  and  found  that  he  had 
first  returned  to  the  inn  at  Gueugnon,  after  losing  me 
in  the  tortuous  channels  of  the  river,  and  stayed  at  the 
inn  till  dejeuner  the  next  morning.  After  his  meal  he 
suddenly  disappeared,  and  the  innkeeper  could  give  no 
further  account  of  him.  The  same  evening,  however, 
he  arrived  at  my  house,  a  distance  of  fifty  kilometres, 
where  he  rushed  to  his  kennel  at  once,  and  fell  down  in 
it  like  lead,  exhausted.  The  next  day  he  was  all  right 
again.  But  it  was  a  severe  run,  for  no  doubt  he  had 
made  the  fifty  kilometres  a  hundred,  and  followed  the 
river's  brink  in  the  thick  underwood ;  often,  I  dare  say, 
swimming  against  the  stream.  I  never  knew  such  a 
persistent  swimmer.  He  never  had  the  sense  to  follow 
the  canoe  on  the  bank,  but  would  always  swim  behind 
it,  however  cold  the  water  or  long  the  distance.  It  was 


334  The  Unknown  River. 

this  which  had  separated  him  from  me.  Being  rather 
pressed  for  time  in  the  late  evening,  I  had  pushed  on 
too  fast  for  Tom. 

The  voyage  had  been  a  lonely  one  from  the  beginning, 
bat  it  seemed  doubly  solitary  after  the  loss  of  my  com- 
panion. I  had  never  been  able  to  do  with  him  in  the 
canoe,  —  he  was  much  too  large  and  heavy  for  that,  — 
but  every  time  I  landed,  either  to  make  an  etching  or 
eat  a  dinner  —  and  I  never  did  either  afloat  —  Tom  had 
always  joined  me,  and  so  the  long  solitude  had  been 
made  less  difficult  to  endure.  I  humbly  thank  Divine 
Providence  for  having  invented  dogs,  and  I  regard  that 
man  with  wondering  pity  who  can  lead  a  dogless  life. 

The  dreary  hours  and  the  dreary  landscape  both  came 
to  an  end  at  the  same  time.  The  moon  rose,  trees  began 
to  reappear  on  the  river's  brink,  the  scattered  currents 
met  together  again,  and  there  were  vistas  of  prolonged 
perspective.  I  remember  one  especially,  a  scene  of 
most  perfect  and  extraordinary  beauty.  For  a  length  of 
about  a  thousand  fathoms  the  stream  was  straight  as  a 
cathedral  aisle,  and  at  about  half  the  distance  there  was 
a  transept  on  each  side,  that  might  have  been  designed 
by  art.  All  along,  the  shores  were  shaded  by  the  richest 
foliage.  Boughs  hung  gracefully  till  they  dipped  their 
golden  leaves  in  the  glassy  water.  Tall  poplars  rose  at 
intervals,  like  towers,  to  mark  the  far  perspective.  It 
was  midnight.  A  pure  semi-transparent  mist  filled  the 
still  and  silent  air,  and  above  in  the  clear  heaven  shone 
the  round  and  brilliant  moon.  Not  a  sound  was  to  be 
heard  but  the  alternate  dip  of  the  paddle,  which  I  used 


An  Etcher's  Voyage  of  Discovery.       335 

as  gently  as  might  be,  for  it  seemed  wrong  to  break  so 
beautiful  a  mirror.  At  last  I  toiled  no  more,  and  the 
little  boat  glided  on  and  on  with  its  own  motion,  as  if 
drawn  by  invisible  spirits.  During  the  whole  voyage  I 
had  found  nothing  so  exquisite  as  this,  nor  has  any  other 
impression  fixed  itself  so  perfectly  in  my  memory. 

That  scene  was  too  ethereal  to  be  etched  ;  but  next  day 
I  drew  this  bridge,  partly  because  it  was  the  last  bridge 
on  the  Unknown  River,  and  partly  as  a  memorial  of  the 
great  and  disastrous  flood.  In  these  terrible  month?  of 
1870,  when  a  thousand  bridges  that  spanned  the  fair 
rivers  of  France  have  been  ruined  to  check  the  progress 
of  an  invader  more  to  be  dreaded  than  any  inundation, 
men  pray  that  the  rains  may  fall  and  the  waters  rise  till 
the  streams  are  all  torrents  and  the  plains  all  inland 
seas. 

After  this  bridge,  the  scenery  of  the  shore  began  to 
assume  the  large  aspect  that  belongs  to  the  stately  Loire. 
A  steep  bank  rose  in  the  distance,  clothed  with  vines 
and  crowned  with  a  group  of  buildings  clustering  round 
convent-towers.  The  current  became  swifter,  as  if  the 
Unknown  River  were  hastening  to  its  end  ;  it  curved 
rapidly  once  or  twice,  then  suddenly  behold  an  expanse 
of  broad  water  before  me,  flowing  westwards,  and,  before 
I  had  time  quite  perfectly  to  realize  the  change,  the 
canoe  was  carried  out  upon  the  Loire. 

And  so  the  voyage  came  to  a  successful  end,  and  for 
the  first  time  since  first  his  waters  flowed,  the  Unknown 
River  has  been  navigated.  Shall  I  conclude  with  a 
triumphant  boast,  and  affirm  that  although  Gaul  and 


336  The  Unknown  River. 

Roman  have  dwelt  upon  its  shores,  and  reddened  it  in 
sanguinary  conflict,  its  perfect  exploration  was  reserved 
for  the  audacity  of  an  Englishman  ?  Let  me  rather, 
more  modestly,  rejoice  in  sharing  that  capacity  for  tak- 
ing pleasure  in  the  beauty  of  natural  scenery  which 
belongs  to  so  many  in  our  own  time.  It  is  this,  much 
more  than  any  particular  satisfaction  in  the  somewhat 
monotonous  business  of  paddling,  which  constitutes  the 
principal  charm  of  all  canoe  voyages  ;  and  it  is  this, 
more  peculiarly  and  especially,  which  made  privations 
light  to  me,  and  labor  pleasant,  and  time  swift,  dur- 
ing the  weeks  I  spent  in,  'An  Etcher's  Voyage  of 
Discovery.' 


Results.  337 


RESULTS. 

A  FEW  words  concerning  the  especial  purpose  of 
this  voyage  —  etching  from  Nature  —  may  pos- 
sibly be  of  use  to  a  few  readers  who  may  undertake 
etching  tours. 

No  art  is  more  agreeable  for  direct  work  from  Nature 
than  etching  is.  The  rapidity  of  it,  and  its  freedom,  are 
greatly  in  its  favor,  and  so  is  its  remarkable  indepen- 
dence of  damp  and  wet.  Many  of  the  plates  in  this 
series  were  immersed  in  the  river,  after  being  etched, 
when  the  artist  was  upset ;  others  were  executed  in  bad 
weather,  with  the  rain  literally  pouring  over  the  copper 
in  a  manner  which  would  have  rendered  any  other  kind 
of  drawing  quite  impossible.  In  the  course  of  the  ex- 
cursion I  did  sixty  plates,  from  which  these  are  selected. 
It  is  better,  I  think,  to  be  rather  prolific  in  production, 
and  select  afterwards  the  plates  which  seem  most  suc- 
cessful, than  to  spend  much  time  in  correcting  bad  plates 
in  the  studio.  My  advice  to  etchers  would  be  to  spend 
time  rather  in  doing  many  plates  than  in  polishing  and 
mending  a  few.  This  may  be  contrary  to  the  feeling  of 
some  painters,  who  rightly,  in  their  art,  obey  the  maxims' 
of  Boileau ;  but  whatever  value  an  etching  may  have 
depends  mainly  on  the  inspiration  of  the  moment.  If  it 
were  only  possible  to  possess  that  inspiration  always,  the 

22 


338  Results. 

art  would  be  easier  than  it  is.  The  only  consolation  I 
have  to  suggest  for  the  many  failures  and  the  disap- 
pointing uncertainty  which  ever  attend  it,  is  that  it  leads 
us  to  work  from  Nature,  and  look  at  Nature,  in  the  most 
essentially  artistic  spirit. 


THE    END. 


University  Press  :  John  Wilson  &  Sou,  Cambridge. 


FOURTEEN  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 


This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


26Feb'56PL 


FEB  2  6 1956 


198; 


\ 


GENERAL  LIBBflBY-u.c.BEBKELEy 


8000818340 


•  ,~s  -  ?n  .>- 


